


Want

by AnkhesenpaatenRa



Category: Depeche Mode, Recoil - Fandom
Genre: BDSM, Drama, Humor, M/M, Psychology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-09-23 13:07:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9658709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnkhesenpaatenRa/pseuds/AnkhesenpaatenRa
Summary: Several years ago I wrote a trilogy about Depeche Mode. This part, 'Want', is the second, from 2012. When I finished the first, 'SPAL (Sex. Pain. Angel. Love)', I thought that Alan's character was left uncovered, looking a typical anti-hero. But stereotypes are something I do not like, so I decided to show the situation described in SPAL from Alan's viewpoint: what and who he saw as right or wrong, with the benchmark switched.





	1. Chapter 1

_I want to know how it'll end._  
_I want to be sure of what it'll cost._  
  
  Alan slapped the wheel with both hands in a fit of temper. It was kind of irrelevant of Mister Random to choose this song to play in his car.  
  It stroke Alan today right in the morning. He was flooded with some strange feeling. It was so clear that he started to feel uncomfortable, though there were no grounds for it. He shaved nervously, ten times checking for no reason whether well enough, and splashed his face with perfume twice as he forgot he had already done it. And he suddenly came to hate his comfortable dark grey blazer, finding it bobbled, and put on his new black shirt. Hepzibah, his beloved spouse, who was applying makeup in the bathroom, looked at him very suspiciously. But he just couldn`t help it. His heart started missing a beat from the strange premonition.  
  He was planning his own business in the morning, but Hep asked him to pick her up so they could buy a wedding gift to Alan`s colleague: they were invited to the event next Saturday.  
"Very well," Alan said, "but you’ll go to the shop by yourself."  
"And why is that?" Hep objected. "He is _your_ colleague. What if I choose something weird?"  
"Like I care," Alan said with a mischievous grin.  
"Right. Like you care," his spouse mocked him.  
  They both laughed when they went out heading to the car. Actually, they slightly disapproved the choice of Alan`s colleague and often chuckled with each other about the misadventures on his way to the family happiness.  
"If you can`t cope with the consequences, you`d better not put it out of your pants at all," Alan`s wife was kidding terrifyingly, as always.  
"Indeed," Alan grinned, "each of us should have been thinking about it from the start."  
  His spouse was offended by him because she decided he meant her. Of course, Alan hastened to assure his wife:  
"I did not think about you when I said that!" Now he caused even more embarrassing questions, like who he was thinking about, and when exactly he had time to put it out of his pants, and what she had missed. "Hep, I cheat on you only with the bottle of Stoli, cross my heart! I do it a lot, hard, and often - but with her only!"  
"That means you were talking about me," Hep said gloomy.  
"God bless you, woman!" Alan replied quickly.  
"Whom, then?"  
"It was just an expression."  
"Alan Charles Wilder! You can`t say something that would be just an expression because you just can`t," Hep said. "The left turn."  
"Well, let us assume I was talking about my first wife. Feeling better?"  
"Nope", Hep said. "I asked you to turn left. Now you’ve missed the turn. What`s wrong with you today?" "Shit! You`ve drowned me in empty talk!" Alan said de bene esse. "Why are women always talking that much?"  
"I don`t know why women are always talking that much", Hepzibah was as cold as a stone, "I mostly care when men talk too much."  
Alan`s lips formed a thin line. He got furious but tried to keep control with diligence.  
"Anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence?" he asked through the clenched teeth.  
  Hepzibah burst out laughing. Anyway, she decided not to press her husband too hard as he seemed in the wrong box today, so she turned it all into a joke:  
"Aye aye, sir! You`d been thrown into each other by passion! You are so emotional!"  
  Alan faked a smile. That wasn`t so funny for him at all. However, he thought it wouldn`t be polite not to support his wife`s mood. There was a second reason either. But mainly it wouldn`t be polite.  
"I wouldn`t call it passion, though…it was…"  
"It was?"  
"I think…I suppose, this person meant so much to me," Alan said emotionless, "too much. Overvalued."  
"A person", Hep`s voice sounded zonky, "Alan loved a person. Was it mutual?"  
  Alan`s face remained calm this time. He decided not to notice the provocation. He was on his guard.  
"I didn`t say it was him, Hep."  
"You didn`t say it was her, Al."  
"Shut up, Hep, or I say nothing."  
"Damn, you caught me!"  
  They both laughed again.  
"I used to believe it meant so much to me. That. Relationship. When I was young, I thought it was love in itself. Now I’m terrified to reflect on what it actually was."  
"Stop here and wait for me. It won`t be long." Hepzibah seemed to have lost all interest in his revelations and opened the door of the car, letting the warm air into the conditioned cabin. Alan respired and set the collar of his black shirt right. He desperately needed some air.  
  No, not love. Fear? Envy? Hate? Rivalry? Control? Struggle for power? For respect? For love? Oh, no, he never loved anyone, he was quite confident so far. He wouldn`t risk his health for it. And at that particular moment mister Random decided to answer Alan`s question by playing ‘Want’. Want. Want! That`s it. Just like this. Not even desire, just want. I want, and fuck it all. I want, and I don`t give a damn of how it will end. I want, and I don`t give a shit of what it will cost. I just wonder how far you can go. I want to taste my own kind.  
  The cold sweat stood out on his forehead because the feeling became so intense…the feeling he thought he`d got rid of years and years ago. He felt the pain that made him paranoid this morning. There was only one person in this world that could make him painfully itching for no reason. The feeling of his presence was so clear; Alan even looked around through the car windows, with his head drawn into his shoulders. All he saw was a young pair, a girl and a boy, sitting on the bench staring at their i-phones, and a fat pigeon hobbling down the pavement.  
"Idiot," Alan said to himself.  
  The cell phone quivered in his pocket. Unknown number. Alan looked at it for a while pondering whether to answer or not. Finally he felt uneasy that something had happened to his children, so he carefully said:  
"Hello."  
"Miller," spitted out his mobile, "I`m not at my place."  
"Hi, Dan," Alan said.  
"What are you doing right now, old boy?"  
"Performing my marital duty."  
"Succeed?" The producer was not confused at all.  
"Sitting in the car, waiting for my wife to return from shopping. Want me to visit you at your office?"  
"Oh, yeah, exactly", Daniel said after a minute, "but I am not in the Country at the moment. Come next Tuesday, for five-o’clock."  
"What’s happened…in general?" Alan asked.  
"Need money?"  
"Have to work?"  
"A little," Miller said. "Some sideline for two months or so, in the studio."  
"«Recoil»?" Alan specified.  
"No," Miller chuckled, "just some young unknown boy band", Miller started to laugh out loud to his own joke, "with some stupid French name…how do you put that?" he imitated Dave’s accent, "«De-pe-shi-e Mode»? No fear, man, nothing unnatural, just refreshing some old material. I am sorry, I have to go now, so see you next Tuesday. Alan? Hello, Alan, are you there? Alan?"  
"Yes, I am", Alan said when he finally could unclench his damn teeth. "Yes, Tuesday, that`s fine for me, Dan."  
  After the words «De-pe-shi-e Mode» - somewhere on the other side of the phone line, very clearly - he heard laughter. This laughter he could never confuse with anything in this world and could never forget. He heard it in his nightmares. And not only in nightmares. He hoped that he would never hear this laugh again, except maybe at his own funeral, but he wouldn`t really care in that particular case.  
His forehead was covered with sweat; he turned the rear-view mirror and pulled Kleenex out of the glove compartment to wipe it dry. It was too impossible. He saw a pale mask with almost fully dilated pupils and a dropped jaw.  
"You are a beauty!" he told himself.  
  A second after the conversation Alan felt that it had all been a daydream, some sort of odd hallucination. Perhaps he should have slept more and drunk less the day before.  
Hep was pretty happy when she returned with a big festively decorated box. He felt her perfume mixed with the warm air again and started to think that his mind was playing tricks on him. Still, his prudence made him push the "save" button. At his leisure on the evening, he would very likely check the international phone code. Just to kill his paranoia for the hell of it.  
"Let`s go," Hep said impatiently.  
"Wait a minute."  
  Alan`s fancy carried him away in time for two decades ago.  
  
***  
  
_I want to strangle the stars for all they promised me._  
  
  It was raining. What a surprise for the London summer! Grey days, and humidity, and rain. However, it was warm in Miller`s Mute studio. Fletch was picking his nose thoughtfully. Alan was staring into the computer`s blinking screen. Everything was in place. There was a smell of burning only, as Martin decided to make himself a toast.  
"Martin, aren`t you burning something?" Alan shouted, irritated, not even turning his head.  
  Fletch seemed not to care, and Dave had, as he explained, «dat rhi-d-itis»: he`d caught a cold and just couldn`t smell the infernal smoke that started to eat everybody`s eyes out.  
"No, I am fine, thank you," Martin announced very politely and charmingly. Then he laughed cheerfully, "Well…I think…I suppose…generally speaking…erm…I shall state the fact that I`ve already burnt the shit out of it! Besides, I`m not quite sure that I understand how it happened."  
  Dave roared with laughter, jumped up immediately, and ran to Martin to check out his achievements in that primitive art of cooking. Soon his buoyant laughter filled the kitchen, mixed with his advice to Martin to start lecturing in Oxford on "How to prepare a toast and not burn your house down". Dave said that Martin was a true professor - he never knew before that bread could be turned into this condition in a toaster. Dave was also very interested if Martin used lighter fluid or preferred old-style kerosene. Martin`s invariable "heh-heh-heh" was the only answer.  
  Fletch stopped reading his newspaper and decided to go and see what was happening. He started chuckling in the hall already. Soon his wise commands were sounding from the kitchen with such professionalism as if he was a surgeon performing an operation.  
"Spatula."  
"No, use the fork."  
"Second one."  
  Finally Alan couldn`t stand it anymore and went downstairs to take part in this serious event. He shouldered Fletch aside, as the guy was obstructing his view.  
  Martin was half-lying on his stomach on the kitchen table concentrating…well, nobody could say that he wasn’t trying to…but his thirty-two teeth smile was shining on his happy face while he was holding the toaster with his both hands.  
"Oh, fucking cunt! I can`t tear it off… Mart, did you spread some glue on your toast? Huh?"  
"No. Shall I?" innocently asked Martin. "Remind me the next time. I will…spread."  
"Ouch! Fuck! It`s fucking hot…I will fucking spread ya…shit! WHAT?!"  
"Heh-heh-heh…"  
  As previously mentioned, Martin was half-lying on his stomach on the kitchen table. He was…let us put it that way…topless. He had taken off his sweater; probably, he was too proud of his fresh summer tan which he got despite the rainy weather. Dave rolled up the sleeves of his checkered shirt; he was carefully scraping the toaster`s insides.  
"How do you usually do it in the morning, Mart?"  
"I am afraid your idea of my morning routine is somewhat wrong, Dave," Martin`s smile was heard even in his voice. "I don`t usually do it in the morning. I usually go to the City by the morning train. Then I wake up. Sometimes."  
  Now it was Fletch`s turn to laugh, as he began recalling all the times he had dragged sleepy Martin out of the train onto the platform. Alan also started to laugh and decided to do everything like it should be done.     He estimated the disposition to find his way to get to the toaster. On the right side of Martin there was Dave manipulating his hellish pokers. Fletch looked preoccupied and was breathing noisily and heavily through the nose. With a mischievous grin Alan decided that he had no choice and lay down on Martin`s back as he was: with his shirt and a leather vest on.  
"Let the Master do his job!" Alan jeered, catching up Martin`s body quite unexpectedly from both sides, very carefully, like a baby’s, but very efficiently as if he meant only business.  
  Alan didn`t realize how it dawned upon him to lie down onto half-naked Martin. Well, Martin walked around half-naked from time to time, so the lads got used to it. Alan didn`t want to show that it bothered him, because nobody in this studio was bothered at all. That`s why he did it.  
  Alan pulled the grid off the toaster by holding it with his right hand that lay exactly on Martin`s. He consciously restricted Martin`s freedom to move, making him feel helpless at that point. Suddenly, Alan felt how the body underneath him strained. He virtually saw goose bumps running down Martin`s spine, but this tension was not hostile. He`d rather decide there was something sexual in it; well, he could be mistaken, though.  
  A strange wave of energy rushed over him from Martin, as he realized that this guy underneath was not actually caring much to win his freedom back. On the contrary, somehow he chose to obey and found the situation highly amusing. Alan felt Martin relax under him, melting like ice, subjecting to him willingly. Alan could swear that everything happened at that exact moment. To be more precise, he realized that it would happen between them in any case. Sooner or later.  
  Dave`s gaze slipped absent-mindlessly over Martin`s totally relaxed pose and stopped on the lad`s temple. Then slowly moved onto Alan.  
  Alan anxiously pushed his ass back because the feeling of Martin`s obeying body stung him right on his groin. He suddenly caught himself imitating the fact of the most enthusiastic peering into the depths of the old toaster in the crossfire of Dave and Fletch`s stares. Actually, he was just trying to lower his head closer to Martin`s bare shoulder, because the smell of his skin was the main thing that he wanted to feel - the more the better. It was Alan`s trial not for Martin but for himself. It became utterly clear to Alan that it was the very first moment when he began to perceive his friend as a sexual object. And he was wondering how it would end. He wasn`t in love - he had never actually been in love with anyone before; let`s say Martin retained his interest. Alan never lost his head. Well, it seemed like this. That’s why he was pretty calm and just waited for the natural barrier to trigger. He was sure it would. And he would no longer want Martin. So he was teasing himself and his friend quite shamelessly.  
  Martin used to behave like some bimbo. He was absolutely dysfunctional in life, showing his naivety and disadaptation to “life in general”, as he called the way of things in Basildon: in particular, his fights with the local rednecks who beat the shit out of him and Fletch almost every time. Occasionally they managed to escape, though. They would return from work in London by the last train, and it was quite difficult to avoid the beating. Nevertheless, Martin took it as a necessary evil; he did not care to resist, just sometimes, when he was in the mood, complaining or joking with his colleagues on "the world we live in and life in general".  
  The story of how Martin drove his girlfriend to the movies - and how later, after a couple of hours, Fletch dragged home a hero lover whom he found sitting in a puddle in a state when he was drunk to reaching the Earth’s orbit, puking all around - cheered even their manager Miller. Every time he heard the narrative, he even took off his glasses to wipe the tears of laughter. Martin giggled, self-satisfied and embarrassed at the same time. Somehow he was able to look both embarrassed and self-satisfied simultaneously, for example like when Dave had asked him for a lighter, and Martin told him to look in his yellow jacket. Dave also found a pack of marijuana in his pocket, and female stockings, and a candy. Dave couldn`t help noting this fact: he entered the studio with a pensive air, with the stockings in his hand:  
"Martin, and why exactly do you need THAT?"  
"Heh-heh-heh," Martin would giggle, self-satisfied and embarrassed, and pretty sure that it was an irrefragable answer.  
  Alan was older - much older, as it seemed at that moment - and he strongly suspected that Martin`s buffoonery, deliberately unassuming manner, his unnatural suppleness (especially admired by Daniel Miller as Martin always did what he was told with no questions) were just Martin`s way to win.  
  Much later, when Martin had rooted under his skin, so that ripping him out went as painful and disgusting as ripping out Alan`s own inner organs, a spleen or two kidneys one after another, Alan was horrified to realize that his young friend was just compensating his overdeveloped self-centeredness, rigidity, and aggression. Being a skeptic, Alan should have had suspected from the beginning that such a bunch of shiny angelic qualities was not given for free on this earth. But at that moment Alan just thought it was Martin`s boyish manner of compensation to look more successful in his friends` eyes. Alan pitied him for that. And made advances to him as if trying to give Martin some support that he didn’t have.  
  Later Alan realized that he shouldn`t have had listened to Dave`s stories either. Intentionally or not, Dave put Martin down by saying that he was just copying him, Dave, and his bygone bearing of a bully - because Martin was the quiet one and jealous. In fact, Alan believed it and relaxed, yet he shouldn`t have. He understood much later the reason why Dave was so eager to put Martin down in his eyes, but at the time Alan just thought he could probably help that simpleton Martin achieve something that rang true. Especially since Martin regarded him with some degree of cautious respect and seemed to be flattered by Alan`s attention. Idiot. He`d better listen more carefully to the intonations of that damn self-satisfied “heh-heh-heh” than to Dave. That was what Hep, his wife, told him once, and he could not disagree.  
  Hep loved Dave. He seemed very sweet, simple, and sociable person to her, just like her husband. She didn`t love Martin and called him “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide in one” because he seemed so sweet and nice, especially when drunk, but at the same time he was quite a rude monster, a misanthrope, and a scum. Hep said that she always hated men like Martin. Alan suspected she had some particular personal female reason to hate Martin, but he never consciously cared to analyze it to make Hepzibah love Martin. His inner psychoanalyst was pretty shocked when he realized that he, Alan, loved Martin, and that was more than enough. He barely survived this idea.  
  By the time Alan realized that fact, Martin didn`t love him in return any more. Well, let`s say, Martin no longer needed him. He took everything he wanted. Martin was a fast learner; he had a phenomenal memory for the things of his interest.  
  Hepzibah helped Alan fight the ghosts from the past, assuring him that he had made the right choice; Alan wasn`t that certain when he was all by himself.  
  But let`s return to the Mute`s kitchen and to the burnt toaster. At the time Alan was overwhelmed with a research interest - so it seemed to him, to be correct. He was mesmerized by the chemistry flowing between their bodies, his and Martin`s. It was like they were making love in front of Dave and Fletch, and those two had no idea of what was going on.  
  Alan was still staring into the toaster`s insides and lowered his face almost to Martin`s shoulder, slowly sniffing the scent of his skin. It smelled like honey. Not the most distinguished scent in perfumery: too down-to-earth and too literal, somehow even too natural, not very pleasant from the very beginning; but nevertheless catching and calling you to feel it over and over again, making you drool realizing that nothing could smell better and be sweeter than that.  
  Alan closed his eyes for a second to imagine himself moving down along Martin`s spine with light kisses, stopping right between his shoulder blades, and found with perverted preciseness that he was absolutely ready to go to the next stage, and fought the temptation to taste Martin`s skin… At that very moment he felt that Dave was burning a hole in his forehead with his like-an-optical-sight stare.  
  Exactly at the time Alan, triumphant, pulled out the grid with the remains of the burnt toast, graciously giving Martin the opportunity to slip out of his sudden embrace.  
"Who`s wearing the trousers here?" Alan asked victoriously, waving the grid in the air.  
"Heh-heh-heh," Martin said very eloquently and took away the grid. A look askance, however, was enough to make it clear to Alan that Martin understood what was happening between them.  
  Alan cheerfully poured himself a glass of vodka with orange juice and knocked this “screwdriver” back at one gulp. The crazy idea that, contrary to his expectations, nothing was over yet and he was somehow subconsciously waiting for Martin’s response, oddly enough cheered him up.  
  It appeared that he began to see advantages of the work for this strange band. Well, a couple of. And he still saw Martin as a sexual object. He couldn`t help it. He just wanted more. However, at the time it did not scare him at all.  
  He was wondering what Martin would do, what his response would be - now it was the most important. The morality of his behavior, as well as the consequences, he would think over tomorrow, maybe. Now he was a hunter, and it was hell fun. The funniest part was to hunt in front of the lads who suspected nothing; but yet he was quite aware of the idea to find a way to have some privacy with Martin here.  
"Alan, what are you doing there?" Dave asked, waving at him to go back to the studio. "Wondering whether you should sample the burnt toaster, man?!"  
"Very funny, Dave," Alan said. "Can`t believe it is your idea."  
  They worked late into the night. At first Alan shuddered from each move of Martin; he mocked himself for the fact that he behaved like an eleven-year-old girl at a school dance, and it cooled his ardor a bit. However, Martin kept his distance and showed no sign that what had happened earlier that day was not the result of Alan`s vivid imagination. By two o`clock a.m. Alan convinced himself that the sexually yielding flesh under him was just a figment of his sick imagination.  
  Alan was standing over the sound controls, with his body weight shifted on his hands, and trying to think about the song. At that very moment Martin rubbed his bare arm against his, hard as a man should but nonchalantly like a cat would. Alan was already drunk enough to look Martin in the eyes and sober enough to realize that was precisely what he was waiting for the whole day.  
  God, he saw this picture from the studio a thousand times afterwards. Martin and him, shoulder to shoulder. It looked innocent as hell. It looked as innocent as it was actually not at all. He never knew what was going on inside Martin, but he knew what was happening to him. And it was far from innocent.  
  They were recording _Stories of Old_.  
  
_Take a look at unselected cases_  
_You'll find love has been wrecked_  
_By both sides compromising_  
_Amounting to a disastrous effect_  
  
“Love,” suddenly Martin said, “I see love as a con-so-la-tion…some kind of the consolation prize and some great reward…for the…erm…life routine. You know, the booby prize given to those who came…last.”  
“Interesting theory,” Alan said, “although controversial.”  
“I mean sex. And booze. They somehow compensate the desperate boredom of existence.”  
  Alan nodded intently:  
“I agree, particularly with the booze part. Are you so bored with life?”  
“Yes, I am,” Martin said honestly.  
“And why is that?”  
“I don`t know,” Martin answered too buoyantly to believe truly how bored he was. “Probably because nobody gives it to me.”  
“Hm. Come with me; I can give you something,” Alan said grimly.  
“What?” Martin tensed a little in response to his proposal.  
  Alan could not help enjoying a couple of minutes of pure triumph over his fellow.  
“A drink. And what did you expect?”  
  Martin laughed out loud in his own authentic manner, and Alan understood that he appreciated the depth of his humour.  
“My last train has just left,” sadly said Martin, looking at the clock on the studio wall and clinking glasses with Alan.  
“Well, let`s drink to the train,” Alan said. “Call your mother.”  
“What`s the point if I won`t be home tonight?” Martin asked, and that put Alan in a deadlock for a few seconds.  
  Then he decided to answer him in the same absurd manner so that his words would reach Martin more easily:  
“Call your sisters then.”  
“They are sleeping already.”  
“I think I understand you,” Alan took off his vest and put on his leather jacket. “Well, Mister Gore, and what are your plans for tonight? Can I engage you to visit some God-forbidden place called nightclub just around the corner and to drink with me a cup of misanthropy, caused by watching people around, to the bottom?”  
“It sounds surprisingly alluring,” Martin said, “as compared to my planned night at the station. I am all yours.”  
  Martin quickly pulled on his chunky knit white sweater and worn yellow leather jacket, jumped into his shoes without untying the laces, and now he was bouncing impatiently. Alan was still standing before the mirror, combing his hair and smoothing it back. Then he held the comb out to Martin.  
“I’d better not,” Martin shook his head; his face suddenly looked as if he was about to cry.  
  Alan laughed. Martin`s complicated relationship with his hair, stiff rebellious African curls dyed into hellish yellowish-white with some sort of class hatred, had already become a byword.  
“All right, Angela Davis, the heroine of the African people, shall we stay or shall we go now?”  
“Heh-heh-heh.”  
  They walked down the street and just reached the bus stop.  
“Hey, where are you going?” Martin asked when Alan spontaneously ran across the street to a rough sleeper in a TV box under the bridge.  
“Wait a minute,” Alan said.  
  He quickly sat down in front of the homeless man, threw him some coins, and raced back.  
“You never know what tomorrow will bring,” he shrugged sheepishly as if embarrassed about his display of kindness as a shameful act of weakness in Martin`s eyes. “My Grandma used to say so.”  
  He was afraid that Martin would make fun of him like his friends always did. But Martin`s face showed no trace of a smile. He was quite serious; he repeated Alan`s route and left the homeless some money without saying a word about that at all.  
  After walking a few hundred meters to the left, they stopped for some time to stare at the brightly lit storefront of the Musical Instruments Shop. They were just standing there and poking each other in the ribs, like “look, this one is really cool”. Alan avowed to be gathering his own collection of rare instruments and every now and then was pointing with his finger to show Martin what he already had and what he needed.  
  Martin was leaning against the window, his nose buried in the glass, enclosing his face with his palms on both sides from the streetlights to see what was inside. From the point where he stood Alan could see pretty well, but he was more interested to look at Martin: the latter was staring at the instruments with the same absolute ecstatic lust as a child gazing at a confectionery counter. So, he was just standing there and smiling as he looked at Martin. Alan felt surprisingly good. The rain had stopped; it was dull and damp but warm. The air was thick and left chewy sweetness in the mouth and viscosity on the teeth like semolina pudding. Martin made him smile constantly; Martin himself smiled so that it crunched behind the ears - he seemed to be absolutely happy.  
  Alan wanted to come up and cuddle Martin close to absorb this sudden feeling of absolute happiness. He felt Martin exuding it and thought that if he came up now, the happiness would overflow him as well. Martin was still shining with it, even when he shared his secret by telling Alan the heartbreaking story of how his mother had thrown his collection of rare records off. Alan comprehended all the suffering of Martin`s wounded soul, but he just laughed out because he just couldn`t help it. Martin was not offended; he laughed in response, adding by the way and rather cruel that he would never forgive her. The streets were empty; their steps echoed loudly. They were intoxicated with the night.  
  Then the guys started a football game by hitting an empty beer can all over the place, bending in half with laughter because first Martin, in the heat of the game, bumped his forehead into a post, which made Alan roar and rush his back to a phone booth, so now Martin almost fell laughing about that.  
“Are you not ashamed of the way you’re scoffing at your friend?!” giggling Alan asked Gore.  
“Oh…no! Not at all! Can you…re….ha-ha…repeat it once again?”  
“Shit!” Alan bumped his head into the club door. “Martin, aren`t you going inside, huh?”  
  Martin was howling with laughter, hugging the post on the other side of the street:  
“A-a-ah…you….just…just leave me here…ha-haaaa-haaaa!”  
“Oh, Martin,” Alan shook his head, still smiling, and stepped through the door.  
  The guard cast a sidelong look at him; Martin, however, did not follow. Alan glared at the corridor walls for a few minutes, then opened the street door:  
“Uh…Martin?”  
  Martin stood right behind the door; he opened his mouth in amazement while he was gazing at the flashing sign of the club. When he finally could speak, his voice was expressing some very strange emotions:  
“Alan Wilder, this is a gay bar!” he said. “You`ve brought me to a gay bar, Alan Wilder?”  
“Dammit, Martin! Fuck you, don`t act like you were born yesterday!” Alan said and grabbed him by the hand. “Hey, do you know another place that is open now, at night?! Come on, let`s go, for sure you can buy a drink here.”  
“Oh, really? I thought clubs should serve some free drinks for the girls,” Martin gave his thirty-two-teeth smile to the guard. “If that’s so, I think you should know that I am an open lesbian.”  
“Martin fucking Gore!” Alan said strictly.  
“Heh-heh-heeeh,” Martin fucking Gore replied.  
  There were just a few people inside the club, and it was relatively quiet. Some tables were occupied, and several pairs of shadows were moving to the music somewhere closer to the dark corners. The light was dim, and the music itself wasn`t loud enough to make them scream into each other`s ears. An average club; so, they drank a couple of beers there. A beefy hairy dude strolled past them. He was wearing an American policeman-style leather cap. Martin pointed his finger at him with childlike simplicity:  
“Look, Al, Andy was performing in a cap like that!”  
  The dude was obviously staring at Martin, but Martin was not confused at all because he couldn`t see him. He was busy with his beer mug.  
“Was it your idea?” Alan asked skeptically, lighting a cigarette.  
“No, that`s Dave. He`s our designer,” Martin said.  
“Oh, my God, where am I?”  
“I…I was wearing a cross-harness, you know, like the one this dude is wearing on his boobs,” Martin chuckled. “It`s so nice.”  
“Isn`t it?”  
“Well, I like it,” Martin said.  
“I`d say, you`d better stop pointing at him,” Alan said carefully.  
“Whom?”  
  Alan showed with his chin. Martin squinted to see the guy more clearly but failed and just forgot about him.  
“«Shall we play?» Huh?” half-kidding, Alan asked somehow between this and then.  
“What?”  
“The play.”  
“What play?” Martin looked utterly uncomplicated, and the subtle hope that was born inside of Alan died a natural death.  
“BDSM,” Alan said grimly. “Bondage. Domination. Sadism. Masochism. Do you know what I mean?”  
“No, I think I…probably…do not…know,” Martin`s cheeks suddenly flushed so bright that Alan could swear he felt the heat emanating from them. “Well…yes, I know actually…But in general, like…no.”  
  Martin buried his embarrassment in his mug of beer. They sat together side by side on high stools at the bar. Martin seemed to feel a little uncomfortable here at first, so he leaned into Alan`s space lightly, resting his thigh and arm against Alan, as if he thought he would be safer like that. It appeared Martin trusted him; at least Alan did not feel it was a trick. Later, when they drank a little, Martin relaxed a bit but did not move away from him.  
  Alan had often seen Martin sitting with Dave like that, leaning against him with his whole body, therefore Alan considered himself particularly favoured and did not resist. Well, he actually liked it in a certain sense. He just didn`t want Martin to know about it, so he was just sitting there afraid to move his leg or his arm not to frighten Martin off.  
  They sat there in silence for quite a while. Suddenly, Martin turned to him and gasped:  
“Do you?”  
  Alan felt Martin`s breath with his neck. And he felt creeps. It was probably a bad idea to bring the guy here…indeed, he started to feel that he wanted to play with him. Alan warily glanced askance at Martin and met his shiny emerald gaze full of interest and admiration. Obviously, Martin found a way to cope with his previous embarrassment, and now his face was showing pure interest and admiration. This face was showing admiration for him, Alan Wilder. Damn. Alan realized that he would definitely have to lie to Martin. He would do anything not to betray those sparkling emeralds.  
“I do,” he said very seriously, hoping that the natural paleness of his skin would hide his emotions.  
“Tell me,” Martin said, “how it goes.”  
“Martin,” Alan pushed his beer aside, “I guess it is very incorrectly to ask.”  
“Why?”  
“Well, Martin, there are some things…beyond…”  
“Beyond what?”  
“You know, there is such a thing as one`s personal life. For example, I am not asking you how you usually jerk off, right, Martin?”  
  Martin looked at him with a strange smile. Or rather, Alan couldn’t understand if Martin had such strange shaped lips or he was smiling at him in a very strange way. He was peering right into his eyes, not blinking at all, like a snake hypnotizing its prey.  
“Give me your hand,” Martin said all at once. “Look, you just have to put your hand on…you know…just like this.”  
  He showed how, firmly and painfully grabbed Alan`s wrist, and started to move his palm up and down in the very distinctive manner. Then he laughed aloud.  
  Alan leaned back abruptly and nearly fell off the chair. Blood rushed to his head. He opened his mouth unable to make a sound. He had not expected that sudden aggressive provocation from Martin. He was too relaxed, or too tired, or too drunk; he believed Martin`s childish behaviour, so innocent and pure, and his brain couldn`t switch into another position so quickly. He realized what had happened only when he saw that Martin was laughing at him. Alan gave him a morose look while climbing down from his stool:  
“I need to pee,” he hissed through his teeth.  
  Alan went to the loo stiff-legged. The feeling of warmth and trust had left him without a trace. Now he was shaking inside, with a little help of nicotine and alcohol, but mostly from the ice rocks in his stomach. Anger and irrational fear seized him. Alan was angry with himself and afraid to screw up in front of Martin. All night he had been waiting for Martin to response; no sooner did he relax than he was immediately caught off-guard and hit straight between the eyes by Martin.  
  Alan cursed himself that he hadn`t taken Martin`s prior words seriously enough: “Sex and booze against the boredom of existence”. Oh, well, so we are having fun now. We are making fun of Alan, now! The fuck you don`t know how to play, baby! What a fool I was to think that it was just a figure of speech!  
  That was no accident - that was Martin`s answer to his question. Martin was expecting the next movement from him now. And if he could not respond adequately, he would fucking fall from his pedestal like some cormorant with turpentine in its ass.  
  Alan moaned over the urinal, burying his forehead in his fist that rested against the grey-painted brick wall.  
“The fuck you don`t know how it goes,” he said to his own cock, scaring the shit out of two gays who were cuddling in a corner. Well, he was not trying to talk to his cock; it`s just nobody else was around. Martin was not there. “And what the hell are you doing to me right now? Damn, what a fool I`ve been!”  
  On the other hand - Alan thought washing his hands - there was also a positive side of Martin`s behaviour. He obviously showed his interest in the game and was evidently trying Alan out, otherwise he wouldn`t do that. Well, that was definitely the positive aspect of the issue. Alan looked into the mirror, turned his head to one side then to another, proudly throwing out his chin. Let`s see who will win!  
“So, let`s play then,” he said to his own reflection.  
  Alan returned in a much better mood, sorting through the options of how to respond to Martin`s provocation. Only later would he finally realize that that was the exact moment he swallowed Martin`s bait and was hooked through his cheek like some stupid fat carp. He would figure it out afterwards.  
  But at the time he knew what to do, and something told him that the answer would probably not come easy to Martin.  
  
***  
  
  Alan came home in the evening and turned on his computer immediately. He didn`t even undress, just took off and threw away his shoes. That damn laptop had never booted for so long. It seemed to mock him, proposing a couple of urgent updates and really buzzing while downloading Skype. When he finally got to the site with the phone codes, his hands were shaking with hatred for this insidious piece of iron.  
  However, it was worth the wait. His intuition did not fail him. Alan pulled out his phone and looked at it with the warmest affection he possessed. Yes, there was a good reason in the morning for the feeling like he was hit by the truck. His poor nerves could not help but feel the vibrations of the noosphere when THIS was approaching him.  
  As he suspected, his cell phone showed the code of a sweet small California town called Santa Barbara. The place on a map that he was usually too scared to look at. Alan rubbed his forehead and chuckled. So, California, then. If Miller called him from Santa Barbara, then it is not that bad with his ears and brains. So, this phone number has something to do with Martin Gore. The hell he will erase it now!  
  Alan wasn`t sure at that moment whether it could be of any use to him, but the idea to erase it seemed monstrous. California. The image of California reminded him of a song. The very thought about this place suddenly inspired him to turn on this old song, the one that was too hard to forget, even though he hadn`t listened to it intentionally for ages. But today there was something wrong with his mood. The train of thoughts and memories was impossible to stop now. Hence, it was easier to succumb than to resist it.


	2. Chapter 2

_Is simplicity best_   
_Or simply the easiest_   
_The narrowest path_   
_Is always the holiest*_   
_So walk on barefoot for me_   
_Suffer some misery_   
_If you want my love_   
_If you want my love_

_Man will survive_   
_The harshest conditions_   
_And stay alive_   
_Through difficult decisions_   
_So make up your mind for me_   
_Walk the line for me_   
_If you want my love_   
_If you want my love_

_Idle talk_   
_And hollow promises_   
_Cheating Judases_   
_Doubting Thomases_   
_Don't just stand there and shout it_   
_Do something about it_

_You can fulfill_  
 _Your wildest ambitions_  
 _And I'm sure you will_  
 _Lose your inhibitions_  
 _So open yourself for me_  
 _Risk your health for me_  
 _If you want my love  
_  
_*Matthew 7:13  “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.”_

Alan always thought that this song was about Martin. The best song about Martin he had ever heard. Even Martin would probably agree. At that time he even took a new nickname to сheck into hotels while touring - “Mister Iscariot”. But at first Martin didn`t recognize himself in Alan`s setting of the song. Well, Martin actually rejected it hard and coldly. He didn`t like it at all, although Alan thought his version was truly genius. It reminded him…California...probably, yeah. Midday. Lazy, passive, and relaxing July midday. Melting air over the fields. Everything seems so good,  but you find it terribly impossible to breathe; you feel totally scared of this alarming tranquility. It seems you are just to have fun, but even birds have stopped singing. The only thing you can hear is sunrays scorching the last life out of the half-dried grass and probably several roulades of a lonely cicada gone nuts because of the heat. Strange, unnatural, somnambulistic, almost pre-apocalyptical tranquility. Nobody knew what was going to happen - either a storm or a tornado, a hurricane or maybe an invasion of locusts that were like horses prepared for a battle, with their men-like faces and women-like hair, or what the hell John the Revelator had promised. Anyway, in that painfully relaxed cheerful midday one felt less optimism than in the maddening calm of a threshold of a terrible storm.   
   Pre-apocalyptical pathological calmness. Martin was radiating it. Alan thought that the song arrangement…it was some kind of a strange impressionistic sound portrait by him, “The picture of Martin Gore”. Probably, that`s why Martin was too mad to acknowledge this fact. Alan was younger at that moment; perhaps, he should have had excused Martin, but he never thought about it. It is unlikely that this heavy burden was that easy for him to carry, and Martin would unlikely ‘talk about it’, as psychoanalytics would say. Just because he never had a choice. Just because he`d already chosen it for himself. It was the way that he was led by his talent, that made him sacrifice himself and sacrifice those miserable bastards who were foolishly led by him. Then again, would they get right with him if they`d thought he wasn’t strong enough to accomplish his goal? Of course not.  
   They would never forgive him his weaknesses, and he never dared to fall down in their eyes. He never dared to fall down in his own eyes. He was just moving forward weighed down by this burden. Switching off  his senses and emotions, fighting everything that was humanlike in him, because he was afraid of breaking. And he had nothing humanlike at that time. Dave regarded him as God. Alan thought he was a mechanical toy with a painted-on grin. In fact, they were both wrong. He was just a man trying to survive, and he did survive despite all the losses and wounds he had had.  Although all of his wounds were self-inflicted. They all were great at the ability to tear their flesh apart at that time. But they all survived, by the way.  
   Still, Alan couldn`t see it then. He was sitting in the eye of a hurricane and couldn’t know it was destroying everything around. He just thought that Martin was an arrogant bastard, who couldn`t be grateful for what Alan did for him – him, who worked his guts out and could hardly excel himself in that genre another time in his life. Alan started laughing, hiding his face in his palms:  
‘’Idiots, Dear God, what idiots we’ve been!’’ he said and stood up from his chair to take a shower and change his clothes.  
  He was laughing about that itching sense of shame he still felt, recalling how hard they struggled with Martin that time. To tell the truth, Martin really impressed him. Fanatic pedantry of his nature in their work had never manifested itself so vividly. Martin forgot his gentleness and pliancy, and pushed Alan with all the power of a typographic press; he stood his ground and refused to give the Enemy even a single inch of his scorched land. In his turn, Alan stubbornly pushed him to do what he knew was better for them all. They had shouted at each other for good eight hours. Flood, their sound-producer for _Songs of Faith and Devotion_ , tried to reconcile them but got hit from the both sides, took offence, went downstairs into the basement, and locked himself in the Laundry room. Fletch asked them to hush the fuck up their roars, but Alan recommended him to go and learn to clap his hands better, because they`d be on tour soon, and Fletch was paid as a fully functional musician.  
“Exactly. And it would be better for you not to forget who I am!” Fletch replied gloomily, looking at him over his glasses.  
   Then came the Dave whom they hadn`t seen for two days as he never got out of his room. He asked them to stop shouting because it made him nervous. It was mere his bad luck that he got Martin`s fist in his face. Martin should never even shout at Dave. It was absolutely forbidden. Ever. Everybody could, but Martin couldn`t.   
   Dave reminded a sheep dog to Alan sometimes. Especially at that exact moment. Like for any purebred dog, very proud and sensitive, hearing his Master scolding him was a real shock for Dave. He was stunned with fear to believe that his beloved Master raised his voice and hand to him; he failed to recognize what he had done wrong because he was just trying to please him…then came the tears. Drugs did their job, although it was always hard for Dave to manage his emotions. He came up with a hysterical breakdown. Normally, Martin would apologize several million times and try to console him.  
   But that time only some black fire flashed inside his eyes, then he clenched his teeth and said he hated them and let them do what-fucking-ever they wanted, and left for the pub.

  Martin was still sitting there, leaning against the bar and swinging his legs on a high stool. It was just that fucking dude who was now blithely sitting near Martin in Alan`s place. As it could be seen, communication held them, Martin and the kinky guy in leather сap and cross-harness, in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Alan came from behind and took Martin's neck into his hook-bent elbow, making it impossible for him to breathe, and pulled him back so that Martin was lying on him now:  
“I sincerely do hope I interrupt you, gentlemen,” Alan informed them through his clenched teeth.  
  Martin hissed something untranslatable, grabbing Alan`s arm with his hands and obviously fighting to breathe. The kinky Leather Dude was alarmed by Alan`s aggressive possessiveness and disappeared quickly.  
“Home. Now,” Alan said to Martin, who was trying to clear his throat.   
  They went upstairs to the front door, then got out to the street in complete silence. Martin didn`t say a word about what had happened. Alan kept silent too. Not that he was mad at Martin now, but he was worried about the strength of the rage attack he felt when he saw Martin talking to someone else. He almost strangled him, and he was worried about it.   
“What`s wrong with you?” Martin finally asked him as they walked down the street to the Thames.   
“What`s wrong with _you_?” Alan retorted grimly.   
“Listen, it`s just…we were talking…”  
“As I am Charles, the Prince of Wales.”  
  He grabbed Martins arm, dragging him aside.  
“Where are you taking me?” asked Martin rather calmly, following  Alan to a solitary construction site. They felt crunched pieces of fallen plaster, boards, glass, metal, and some other garbage, unidentifiable at night-time, under their feet.   
“To talk…” Alan replied through his clenched teeth.  
  Martin`s face held a strangely smug expression, either from alcohol or by nature. He was surely impressed by Alan`s outburst but not in the sense Alan would be happy to know. Alan looked askance at Martin; he was surprised that even in the dark he saw that his eyes were green. They were glowing with bewitching green light right from their depth, fatally mesmerizing Alan like some sort of will-o'-the-wisps. To see the will-o'-the-wisps was a bad sign in the land where Alan was born, but it seemed that to meet Martin was even a worse one, so he had nothing to lose.  
   Alan grabbed Martin`s shoulders, turned him around and pressed him against the wall with all his heart. Exactly against the motto  _“Kip Britin Vait!”_ written over the painted “ _SHARP”_  emblem of antiracist skinheads. He didn`t give Martin a chance to realize what was going on and dug his lips into Martin`s mouth, clumsily biting his lip at first because he was too scared to miss it.   
  Alan`s heart was beating so fast and loudly in his ears that it almost hurt. He heard nothing, even his own heavy breath and Martin`s gasps, only this fucking ‘boom-boom-boom’; he was too scared to open his eyes. When he realized that the dice had been cast, fear paralyzed him. In fact, it was the worst kiss in his life. His worst nightmare came true. He almost bit the lad`s lip through, too scared to stop the kiss because then he`d meet the consequences. He hoped that Martin`s adequate reaction would come before them, but the time was passing, and his breath was almost over, as well as his ignition.  
  Martin stood still.   
  He didn`t move a fucking musсle.  
  Absolutely. He didn`t even grab Alan`s arms, although he should have done it instinctively out of fear to fall back when Alan pushed him up to the wall. Now all Alan wanted was to die. He wished Divine Powers would struck him down with the Thunder from Heaven on that shitty construction site right then and turn him into dust under those glowing green eyes. Because Martin was just staring at him silently. Alan felt like Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo; in simple words…totally fucked up. It was an epic fail. What the heck should he do now?  
“You don`t like me?” Alan asked in a husky voice. Well, now he really had nothing to lose.  
“I do like you…I believe…” Martin said calmly.  
  Alan felt cramp at the back of his head from both sides. He put one hand on the right from Martin`s head and the other on the left, pressing his palms against the brick wall. He was glaring at the lad darkly. He wanted to ask Martin if he was sure he knew what to do when kissing, as he became tired to be the one and only idiot here. But his sense of humour left him completely.  
“The things you do…I think I…like them too.”  
“Oh no, really?” The sort of metallic sound in Alan`s tone was indescribable.  
  Instantly another idea struck him. Oh, what a fool he had been. What if…  
“Dave?” he asked.  
“Dave - what?” Martin replied quickly. Too quickly.  
“Well, you and…Dave...is there something going on between you two…er…I don`t know…some kind of relationship? Are you, like, you know…together?”  
“Oh, obviously, we are not,” Martin sighed.  
  If Alan was more clever at the time, he would notice that Martin almost betrayed himself with this “we are”. He should have understood that Martin and Dave were “we” even then. He would run away from that construction site, hurrying like a bitch from hell, but he was too young, too dumb, too inexperienced; he was tired and horny, also drunk and mad, and his mind was focused on solving the problem of Martin resisting to kiss him back. So, Alan heard only one word: “no”.  
“Why don`t you kiss me back then?”  
  Martin shrugged; he was sure it was a complete answer. Alan had never been as close to murdering a man as at that moment. Without saying a word Martin stood up on his toes, touched Alan`s angry face with his both palms softly, and gently placed his lips on Alan`s. It was too hard for Alan even to unclench his teeth. The idea to kill Martin still seemed more attractive to him than kissing, but the lad became surprisingly persistent. Slowly, tenderly, somewhat pedantically gently he was placing short soft kisses on Alan`s upper and then lower lip. His tongue was teasing him and it was almost ticklish, so Alan even opened his mouth to say that to Martin…but the latter just used the advantage to deepen his kiss. He did even more - he used Alan’s distracted attention to turn him around and press him against the wall with his own body, continuing his slow and gentle kiss. Oh, you fucking bastard, you can kiss, Alan thought. Martin really liked to kiss and wasn`t afraid to show his interest. Alan started to melt. He fucking liked it. Maybe it was even better that he hadn’t killed Martin? Alan laughed at his own thought.  
  He made some clever movement to return Martin to the original position. Despite his expectations, Martin neither resisted nor defended his active position - he was willingly accepting Alan, catching his lips with his own and moving towards. Alan felt he was desired for. It was a turn-on. A fucking turn-on.  
  He put his hands underneath Martin`s sweater and felt the burning heat of his skin. Martin almost jumped with Alan`s touch because his hands were as chilly as ice. The night was pretty cold, so was the brick wall from which his palms took in the chill, but he forgot about it.  
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Alan bowed his head in shame.  
“I probably would,” Martin laughed.  
  Their lips entwined with a wet juicy sound, and the feeling of unity absorbed them both. They were here in the street alone; they were together. It was like the world outside never existed. Their kisses became shorter; their breath was rushing, and their heads were turning. Alan`s hands slid up then down Martin`s back and became as hot as his skin. Alan moved his palms to Martin’s navel and up and stopped on his chest, holding his sweater up to his armpits.  
  Martin groaned and arched his body forward, pressing his thighs into Alan`s, unambiguously hinting at his body’s reaction to Alan`s treatment. Alan seemed to have missed the moment where they`d stopped kissing and started to make love. And he never would if some drunken bum hadn’t appeared from nowhere and cursed them:  
“Go `way, fockin` fags!”  
  They`d forgot all decency.  
  Alan jumped away from Martin like a scalded cat.   
“Holy shit!” Alan thought his heart would jump out of his chest from the infernal mix of fear and desire.  
  He thrust to the right corner, pulling Martin with him, as a glass bottle slammed against the wall where they stood a moment ago.  
“We are fucked!”   
“Ha-ha-ha-ha,” Martin expressed his opinion of the situation and followed Alan on a short path over the fence.         
  When they ran far enough, they stopped on one of the main streets which was lit sufficiently. Alan bent over, leaning against his knees, trying to catch his breath:  
“ If...if…”  he spat on the sidewalk in a bad manner. “Holy Cunt, Lord Almighty, if I survive tonight...”  
“You will, ha-ha-ha,” Martin said. "You won’t get off so easily! HIS sense of humour is too twisted. What’s the point in killing you now if He could laugh more later?»   
   Martin made Alan laugh out loud. Alan was still fighting for his breath. Martin, however, seemed quite pleased with what had happened. For a “good  boy” he liked to appear he was too calm and confident in such an extreme situation. Apparently, it was a part of his struggle with boredom. Alan began to suspect that the stories about the rednecks beating the shit out of Martin and Fletch almost every weekend were not the complete truth. Well, Martin`s smile was too wide. Some of the chavs probably survived. And damn, Martin apparently missed less physical training lessons at school than Alan. He was walking around him impatiently:  
“So what are our further plans for tonight, Al?” Martin said grinning. "Let`s go to the skins; there`s such a nice place to make out.”  
“Oh, please go ahead, you can do it without me,” Alan stood straight now. “I`ve had enough for today.”   
“I need to drink,” Martin said, “I am almost sober. And I have three more hours until work. Not enough time to sober up completely, so I believe there is no point in stopping.”  
“Reasonably,” Alan agreed, “if you will be able to understand what to do at work.”  
  Martin shrugged.  
“I…can`t actually say I understand what I do there every single day, so nobody will probably notice any difference. We`ve got three hours to kill.”  
  Alan laughed.  
“Let`s go to my place then. I guess we`ll find something to do.  You`ve got nothing to lose anyway, mainly…if you are still drunk.”  
   Martin`s loud laughter cheerfully announced to the surroundings that he was there.

***

 Alan had never ever waited for Miller so impatiently. His mind had overworked itself. He was weighing the pros and cons. At first he decided to say yes to any of Miller`s proposals. Then that authentic and oh-so-familiar ill-mannered chuckle he`d heard on the other side of the phone line somewhere near his producer started haunting him. He became aware that he would look like a happy dog who ran hurriedly to his master`s call, and it killed his mood. Obviously, Dan discussed all the details with HIM, as he would never ask if it hadn`t been HIS will. It was absolutely sick to think about it and to be so nervous, but the situation looked equally bad from both sides. If he refused, he would look like a shitty coward, but if he agreed…he would give himself away.  
   Alan started to call Miller, but the latter didn`t answer, as if he knew everything about Alan`s doubts. Then Miller left him a voice mail:  
“Hi, this is Dan Miller. And you, Wilder, don`t you fucking even dare. See you at the tea party in my office this Tuesday. Don`t try to bring any biscuits.”  
  
***

_I want you to call me on your drug phone._  
_I want to keep you alive so there is always the possibility of murder later._  
  
Alan put a liter of Jack Daniels on Miller`s table.  
“Well done, well done! Good boy!” Miller said.  
“I am so touched, Dan.”  
“Sit down, please,” Daniel pointed to the armchair beside the low coffee table. “Drink yourself?”  
“I am driving. Besides, I hate whisky. Do you have white spirit? Or some screen wash? Makes no difference for me.”  
“Like I will jump and run to find you some white spirit! I need to talk to you, so eat what you are given,” Dan was kidding, but he said it without any trace of a smile on his face; he even put his cigar out of his mouth.  
  It might be really important to him. Alan didn`t want to upset Miller or to show any disrespect for him.  
“Do you want to get me dead drunk and take the advantage over my weaknesses in that state?” Alan joked, leaning back in a soft leather armchair.  
  It seemed that the talk would be long. Ok then, he could leave his car there and call a taxi.  
“Indeed,” Dan wasn`t smiling even politely, just at all.   
  Alan nodded. Instantly he felt like a little boy, though Dan didn`t even push him anywhere. Yet.  
“You won`t find enough white spirit here,” he replied.  
  Miller generously poured himself a glass of whiskey and a second one for Alan. He drank almost to the bottom.  
  So did Alan - not to stutter.   
“So, you saw Mart…Martin?”  
“How do you know?”  
“Because of Santa Barbara`s phone code.”  
“You know Santa Barbara`s phone code by heart?”  
“No, I`m just a smart shit. I had checked afterwards. When I heard that painfully familiar “ha-ha-ha”, I was worried where my producer was hanging around - and here I am. He was with you when you called me?”  
“Ah, ok then, yes, I was visiting Martin. Just business, but I also wanted to see his new house after his divorce and to talk like good friends, something like that…you know.”  
  He refilled their glasses.  
“From that time I can`t drink vodka any more. So thank you very much for the whiskey.”  
“You are free to choose your poison,” Alan laughed.  
“Mart said that he believed it could be incorrect to work on remasterings of the old DM material if you, Mr. Wilder, disagreed to take part. Because of the respect to your creative contribution and input. So, Alan, you should know you are stealing my money if you even try to disagree. I know you don`t need any money for yourself,” Miller was trying to make it sound like a joke, but Alan was just staring bluntly at the wall, so Miller continued, “but Martin insisted that I asked you first, Mr. Wilder.”  
“Mr. Gore could call me by himself,” Alan`s voice sounded quite bitchy, “as far as he nicely decided to be that gracious.”  
“And why is that? Fancy to ask him out to lunch?” Miller was not impressed by his tone. “No problem, Al, I can call him for you right now. By the way, what time is it? Oh, I believe it might be morning at Mart`s place.”  
“No!” Damn, Alan sounded so hysterically that he felt really embarrassed.  
  Miller started laughing.  
“At the current stage of our relationship I am not ready for this yet. Shall we see each other?”  
 “Well, I guess if you feel the NEED to…then, of course, you can meet each other for God’s sake! The most important thing is - for God’s sake only. You two are adult men, and you have families and kids, so who am I to judge you? Actually, I thought you were better than that, Al. No, I was pretty sure about Dave when I saw him first. But, Alan, YOU?!”   
“Fuck it, Dan! It`s not that funny as it seems,” Alan commented wistfully.  
“You don`t say so!” Dan laughed again. “It does seem quite funny for me, old boy!”


	3. Chapter 3

_I want to be there where you learn the cost of desire._

 “Have you seen my glasses?” squinting, Andy entered the room.  
  Silence was the answer. Alan only looked at him over his shoulder. A working evening in the studio had started as usually. Alan arrived first, at noon, having had enough sleep after the hard-working night. In fact, he couldn`t sleep normally after Martin had left. He fell unconscious for a few hours and then just lay in his bed, shifting and rolling from one side to the other. The bed linen smelled like Martin. That’s why it inevitably turned the track of his thoughts back to what they had been doing here. It hindered him from sleeping, filling his raw nerves with shame and dismay. No, it hadn`t been that bad yesterday or rather say earlier in the morning. Quite the opposite: it seemed so natural and easy; not that they didn`t have a choice, but none of them wanted to make any. However, Martin wasn`t near now – he went to work, apparently even in time; he didn`t wake Alan up and just shut the door behind himself. If he`d waken him, all this everyday domestic activity, like making tea for him or something, would wash away the useless knot of cowardly emotions, because he`d have to look a more experienced male in Martin`s eyes. But since Martin wasn`t around, Alan didn`t have to pretend. He didn`t want any tea either.  
  So he was rolling from side to side, white-hot thoughts stinging his brain. The thoughts about what he`d done and said, burning in love fever, and mostly about what he hadn`t said or done. It now seemed to Alan he`d said too much but hadn`t done what he should have had. He`d got lost. He`d been drawn into that flow of warm caresses and ardent kisses. He`d had enough balls to stay cool at first, trying to be polite and show Martin his favourite vinyl collection, but Martin looked at his watch in some businesslike manner and said in the most inhumanly metallic tone:  
 “We`ve got two hours and a half for everything.”  
  For everything.  
  Ok, deal. Alan knew what Martin meant.  
  So he just threw him down on the bed and fell atop, kissing Martin`s lips, nose, forehead and cheek; he placed his lips on Martin`s ear, then right under, then traced his jawline and back to the lad`s lips again. Martin groaned like he could come right now, exhaling with a hidden thirst of unsatisfied desire in his moan. He couldn`t hide the rapture about unexpected level of Alan`s sudden tenderness. As for Alan, though, he didn`t expect such approval for his small steps. Did not expect, but it hit him like a truck up to his cerebellum. So he decided to repeat his circle of kissing over Martin`s face and then slid down, feverishly licking the lad`s neck; he almost stopped breathing not to miss any sound that Martin would make.  
 “Hell, you`re such a turn-on!” Alan whispered.  
 “Ah-h-h…” another hot wave hit Alan`s balls.  
  Martin`s breath started to rush, indicating the rightness of Alan`s actions. It made Alan relaxingly dumb. Dumb - because he was melting with every minute like a knob of butter on a hot pancake. He felt so warm and safe inside - Martin was in his arms, and he wanted to be; there couldn`t be any other opinion.   
  Alan kissed his way down to Martin`s neck, then lower, tracing his collar bones. Martin let him bring his arms up and over his head - yes, it was much better this way. Taking his pleasure of Martin`s shuddering under him, Alan kissed the inner sides of his elbows and several inches lower where the skin was most sensible and defenceless. He didn`t think much before passing his tongue across Martin`s nipples and chest.  
 Martin was acting as if reading the unwritten law of desire by heart. He arched his body and pressed his hips against Alan`s, reminding him about the state of his own excitement. Alan moaned through the gritted teeth, trying to suppress his emotions, and he was a success until the moment he heard:  
 “Touch me.”  
  Alan gulped nervously and did what he was asked. Well, of course he knew where exactly Martin needed to be touched. And yes, he did touch him there. Martin`s screams felt like TNT for his brain. Alan got out of breath at the hardness he felt under his palm.  
 “Let me…” Martin whined, “let my hands go!”  
 “Why the heck? I am all happy!”  
  Martin decided not to go into details much. He just escaped from Alan`s grip and started kissing him hard, almost hurting their jaws and removing Alan`s clothes.  
 “I see your point!” Alan said when he was able to.  
  He obviously got too lost in researching Martin`s reactions and forgot how much he was aroused now. Actually, he forgot that Martin was the guy, just like himself, so he would hardly wait for his initiative. It added a lot of pepper to this erotic dish. He wanted him. Martin really wanted him. Oh, fuck!  
  Recalling all that in the morning was the most perverted torture on earth. It was tearing Alan apart with the mix of erotic ecstasy and black paranoid fear and uncertainty. Martin had left him silently, and it was understandable from one point of view: it looked like some sort of care for Alan`s repose; but it was fucking hell. Alan wished he could see Martin`s eyes - it would ease his mind.   
  Alan jumped off his bed and went to the shower. Warm water relaxed him a bit and helped him find some kind of peace inside. Well, no more did he wish it had never happened. Not now, when his hands were gliding over his own body with a sort of ironical research interest, finding how sensitive his skin still was after that kind of night.  His skin responded like it was someone else’s touch.  
  A warm stream of water caressed his mouth and made him lick his lips. He felt like an idiot; he was ashamed of what they`d done, and he still didn`t have a clue what the hell he would say to Martin when he`d see him again – yes, it was all quite the same as before, but with one difference. He stopped fucking care. At the moment he cared much more about the fact that he wanted Martin here and now. In that shower.  
 “Fool in love!” Alan smiled at his mood changes.  
  He grabbed his balls from behind, slowly remembering how it felt when the other man`s hand did the same. The other man`s hand, then mouth.  
  Martin didn`t hesitate - he pulled Alan`s zipper open, let his aroused flesh free, and took it into his mouth. Alan realized that now it was definitely the point of no-return and nothing-to-lose. He groaned, arching his back towards Martin`s caress. He felt every touch, a little bit soft and ticklish from the start, but soon Martin`s moves became firmer and faster. Alan decided it was time to open up his eyes. The feeling was great, but that wasn`t the only thing he wanted to experience now. He wanted to see Martin giving him his head. The sensation of his caress alone couldn`t help - he NEEDED to see MARTIN blowing him. Alan bit his lower lip, mesmerized by the intricate beauty of the whole process coming into view.   
“You,” he exhaled, “are sucking my dick.”  
“I am,” Martin nodded half-jokingly, although he realized why Alan needed this statement.   
  He needed it too, but for some other reason than Alan, of course.  
  It took time for Alan, now staying under the stinging streams of water, to realize that he was caressing himself quite seriously, and he just wouldn`t stop until it came to its natural finish. His dick stiffened in his own hand that was moving back and forth faster, which made steamy pictures in his mind increase their temperature more and more. Martin`s blowjob, slightly abashed and thereby so precious, became not enough in his state of arousal now. He recalled his later insanity, when he had been lying naked on Martin`s back, biting his skin right between his shoulder blades in order to contain himself; he recalled the taste of Martin`s sweat – the taste that had made him even more insane because it was the result of what he` been doing to Martin at the time.  
“I want you…I want to have you…I want to feel your body accepting me willingly, because you want me…I want to feel you wanting me,” Alan was feverishly whispering the words he probably shouldn`t have to, but he felt so good.     
  If he had ever felt any love before in that kind of ungodly act, it grew dim beside the strangling sensation that paralyzed his mind and loins with pure rapture now. He was mumbling bullshit, but if he`d not, he would probably moan to Martin that he fucking loved him - to strangle himself in the morning after that. He did love him, but he wasn`t sure he meant it. He loved Martin in that exact moment; he loved how he was answering his erotic movements; he loved how he reacted to his pain and tenderness; he was hypnotized by the line of Martin`s shoulders; he adored his arms and his arched back; he worshipped the beads of Martin`s sweat crawling down his spine between those fucking shoulder blades – the beads of sweat he kept licking off like a maniac.  
  Alan loved how Martin`s muscles reacted when he changed his tempo. Martin was squeezing him more than necessary because Alan was squashing his thighs together; it was too intensive for the first time, but Alan wanted it that way. Martin didn`t object either. He did everything Alan asked.  
  It was strangely erotic. It was purer and held more chastity than the same act of love with a girl. It was an act of intimacy and trust between the two men; however, it was the refined sexuality itself. It was sex purified from any biological instincts; it was the other man satisfying his intimate needs voluntarily. Alan felt it was the absolute love, but he was not ready to discuss it with Martin at the moment. He thought he had already revealed too much of his possessiveness and care - Martin could put it against him any time if he`d like to.  
  Alan trusted Martin because he was a guy too, but he was the man he started to fear. He was too scared to say «I love you», even though his heart was asking for it, and his lips were begging. He was afraid that Martin would see it as weakness and reject him. Alan felt that the man underneath was in need of his strength, but he wasn`t ready to give such a weapon right into THOSE hands.  
“You belong to me now.”   
  It was especially immoral to get so aroused by the feeling of control he had over the body beneath. Still, the body didn`t show any resentment.  
  Well, it did stiffen at first from his invasion, but Alan tried to be as careful as a goldsmith, and soon Martin started to groan pretty vitally, urging him not to stop. And not even try to give him any kind of freedom.  
  Alan started to moan just with Martin`s excited moans. He was stimulating him to feel that good, and if he`d tried to suppress his groans, his abdomen would explode from the happiness that Martin`s «ah-h-h» brought him. Those trivial air flows inside his lungs that caused his husky moans really helped him to ease the pain from each forward movement of his over-aroused cock.  
  It filled his brain, and it was too much in his tired and half-drunken state, but he wanted more; so, clenching his teeth, he was trying to make this distinctive pleasure last longer. He was wet; Martin was wet; sheets were tangled up between them and totally got everywhere in the way of their movements. They both were too exhausted to continue but too excited to stop.  
  Martin was begging for more; Alan`s arms were trembling, and he was alive only due to his will to fuck the hell out of Martin, whatever it would cost him. It was dawning outside, but he was still too fucking busy because of that. Finally Alan realized that he could change the position, so he would probably not die before coming. He was not lying on top of Martin`s back anymore, gripping his thighs with his own and hammering Martin into the bed with his bolt. Although the sensation Alan got was different from THAT, he could take the new one.   
  He made Martin stand on his elbows and knees. It was a sort of insight! He could move now! And so, he did. The change of the position emboldened them both, so Alan had to do little to send them over the edge of ecstasy, and he didn`t give a fuck if he was screaming or yelling now - his balls were fucking smashed with pleasure.  
  Unconscious, he fell down on Martin and…well, and then he awoke. Alone.

  When Martin entered the studio after his working day, he was, in Miller`s apt expression, «as quite as an ant pissing on cotton». He silently entered the room and barely nodded to everyone. While Daniel was in the same room with all of them, Martin was convincingly playing moderately enthusiastic, desperately propping his chin up on his fists. He actually swayed from time to time, but Fletch kept on trying to return his friend into vertical position. Dave humorously moved Martin`s elbow from left to right and vice versa, not sure either trying to help the buddy drop his face on the table or to stir him up. Martin just gazed at him from under the heavy eyelids with the tranquility of the Thai Golden Buddha statue, passing into nirvana at a noisy and irrepressible child.  
“All lay loads on a willing horse, huh, Martin?” Miller asked, jokingly petting Martin`s hair.  
“M-m-m-m,” Martin said.  
“Listen, haven`t you had enough of it yet? You are working in your bank like a zombie and sitting here, you know, like a…erm…zombie, too.”  
  Martin shrugged:  
 “I…I don`t know, really. I believe…I hope they will fire me somehow. I`ve dreamt about that all day, I`ve begged them internally to throw me out, but somehow they did not.”  
“You can, like, retire, dude. By yourself, though,” Dave said.  
“How come?!” Martin was deeply surprised, or so his face said.  
  Dave frowned. He was the only person in the studio to take Martin`s question seriously, so he started to choose the words to explain. Alan even dropped the spoon into his cup of tea, watching the interaction with an inexplicable - at least for Andrew Fletcher and Daniel Miller - enthusiasm. He found the mise en scene extremely entertaining. However, at the moment when Dave began explaining how to write a notice of resignation and where to put the date in the paper, Alan decided to tell Martin that mocking children and animals was immoral. He even opened his mouth. But Martin answered Dave first:  
“How can I leave when they took me?”  
  Alan forgot to close his mouth. He never thought that it could be a dialogue of two equals.  
“Ain`t they be upset if they won`t be able to see your sleepy mug every day, chuck?”  
“Errrr…” Martin was staring bluntly at the ceiling for good two minutes, “no. I think they won`t.”  
  Martin`s mood enlightened instantly.  
“So, where shall I write the date? Left corner?” he asked Dave.   
  Alan was terrified by the thought that Martin wasn`t mocking Dave, so he looked at him once again with greater interest. At night he thought he was shagging a much more evolutionary developed human being than that; he had definitely drunk too much.  
  Martin consciously avoided looking him in the eyes.  
“Did you leave Basildon by the seven-twenty`s train?” suddenly asked Andy. “I totally lost you in the morning!”  
“No, I did not.”  
“Couldn`t you just wait for me?”  
“I didn`t go to work by the morning train,” Martin answered again patiently, “I walked.”  
“You walked right on the railway line?” Dave laughed.   
  Fletch worriedly touched Martin`s forehead, suspecting he had some kind of delirium.   
“No, I am not crazy,” Martin said a little bit touchily, throwing Andy`s hand off his forehead, “I wasn`t at home yesterday. I stayed the night in London.”  
“OOOHH, YEAH, BABY!!! THERE IT IS!!! HERE WE GO!!!” Dave was laughing out loud now. “And the night was rather hot, wasn’t it?”  
  Alan didn`t realize at first that he stopped breathing.  
  In a very matter-of-factly manner Martin announced to the world:  
“Nothing out of the common.”  
  Alan choked on his tea.  
“Watch yourself, Alan!” Miller said grandmotherly, patting Alan`s back, “we have a lot of work to do yet!”  
“Tha-thank…you, Dan,” Alan felt he was blushing like hell.  
  Earlier, when he came to the studio, he told Dan that Martin had stayed the night at his place. Like he didn`t think much. Dan just told him that Andy had lost Martin, so had Martin`s family; probably he knew something? Alan decided there was nothing extraordinary about it - what the problem? They could`ve had stayed in pub for too long in the night, and there weren`t any night trains!  
  Alan hoped Miller would be so kind not to eat him alive by telling this fact to everybody, and he would do his best to save face. Dan opened his mouth, and was ready to kill everybody with the details, but Alan hit first:  
“Aren`t we going to do something today already?!” he said, pretending that the teaspoon in his hands wasn’t shaking.  
“Oh, yes, we are,” Martin jumped up off his seat.   
  There was a couch in their working room. Martin had his certain plans for that couch.  
  So they all forgot about the topic soon. It wasn’t that important after all.  
  Martin entered the room enthusiastically and lay down on the couch, which he was craving most as he was almost going insane from the lack of sleep. He hugged himself, crossed his legs, and passed the fuck out in a second. Dave ran into the room, hissing and pressing finger against his mouth. In his hands he held Fletch`s glasses that he had obviously stolen, and he was happy as a baby. He looked around in search of the most funny object to place them…and saw Martin, who was sleeping like an angel. The opportunity was too tempting for Dave to miss it. He giggled and quietly applauded himself for the idea; even gloomy Alan started smiling. Dave placed Fletch`s glasses on the bridge of Martin`s nose. Martin felt nothing and didn`t move at all. So, and here came the Fletch:  
“Have you seen my glasses?”  
“Nope!” Dave was shaking his head violently, like a child insisting that it was the cat who had eaten all the raspberry marmalade.  
  He turned to Alan, winking him deviously. Usually Alan didn`t support their educational games with Fletcher`s glasses, but this time the temptation was too big even for him. From time to time he darted glances at Martin, sleeping in Andy`s spectacles. Well, Andy looked at Martin too, but he couldn`t see if those were Martin`s glasses or his own.  
“Alan, have you seen my glasses?”  
“I would tell you, Fletch, where I would like to see your glasses, but you will most likely be offended,” said Alan, smiling to the guy affectionately.   
  Fletch swore under his breath.  
“Relax, Fletch, we will buy you a new pair!” Dave was wrinkling his nose not to laugh out too loud.  
“I don`t want a new one, I am a retrograde, I`m eager for my old ones! My favourite old glasses!”  
“Fletch, really, calm down, drink some coffee. Just realize you can drink coffee in the studio the whole day, and you won`t need glasses!”  
  Dave twisted his finger at his temple:  
“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING `BOUT?! And how will Fletch read his newspapers?”  
  They both burst out laughing. Fletch called them “degenerates” and “moral monsters”, and assured them that he knew who`d stolen his glasses, and as soon as he found the item, he would beat the shit out of that red impudent muzzle!   
  Alan tactfully pointed out to Fletch that he could not, of course, objectively judge the nuances of male faces and their expressions, but the only person with natural red hair color was Fletch himself, so he asked Andy to make sure he would call him to see how he would beat himself in the face.  
  Dave whimpered from laughter and played a brief but expressive pantomime "Fletch beats the shit out of his impudent red head". Andy, however, continued to stick from one corner of the studio to another, occasionally howling melancholically like a ghost that had not found his rest in peace, in his search for the precious glasses.  
  The first three times Alan and Dave tried to hide their grins until the pain in their cheeks, but the howling repeated so insistently that they started nickering like beasts. Martin woke up from their heehawing and sat on the couch yawning. He tried to rub his eyes but was unsuccessful as fuck because he rubbed the glasses instead. The guys started laughing even more than before. They were literally crying from laughter. Martin replied:  
“Hah-hah-hah-hah,” he seemed to have understood what was going on there.  
  Fletch decided to look inside the room again.  
“Fletch,” Martin said joyfully, “why did you put your glasses on me when I was sleeping?”  
“Me?!” Fletch said indignantly.  
  After that short break they started to work more productively. They recorded five versions of one song. They all were just great from one point of view and just a crap from another, so when it was eleven o`clock, they decided that tomorrow is a new day. Andy took Martin by the scruff and said they had to go now, otherwise they would miss their train.  
  Dan was sitting in his office, and Dave was on the telephone in the back room, rambling. Alan went downstairs to close the door behind them.  
“Goodbye, Alan,” Fletch said ceremonially.  
“I am looking forward to seeing you soon, Andy,” Alan replied in the same tone.  
  Martin said nothing. Alan raised his eyebrow while closing the door. In his humble opinion, even on the scale of Martin pretending that nothing had happened he just surpassed all moral standards. There was a knock on the door at once, briefly - Alan had not even had time to hang the chain. He opened the door. There was Martin smiling broadly:  
“I forgot something,” he said to Fletch over his shoulder, pushed Alan away insistently, rushing in and shutting the door with his leg, and stang Alan`s lips with his own.  
“Oh...that`s so nice you remembered…because «something» was pretty puzzled!” Alan whispered into his very lips.  
  Martin smiled but just deepened their kiss.  
  The touch of their lips struck their bodies with an electric shock immediately: their mutual excitement knew the most precise and short way as it had learned the day before, so it worked out right now. Somewhere out there Dave`s voice was mumbling something peacefully from afar. And there were Fletch`s loud steps on the other side of the door.  
  Alan pressed Martin against the door with his body, placing hot kisses on his mouth. Even through their sensual heated rush he felt the presence of Andy pacing in about a meter from them and having no clue that they were almost making out like some crazy pair of lovers. In fact, they were the crazy pair of lovers now - right from the moment Martin had French kissed him secretly. Before that it had been just a stupid experimental drunken fuck. Now it was a statement that they were lovers. He`d been waiting for that moment the whole fucking day; their lips were entwined now, and it meant that Martin was telling him, “Yes, I want to be with you.”  
“MARTIN!” Andy shouted loudly to be heard through the door.  
  It seemed he pressed his ear to it to hear better. Alan was trying not to suck Martin`s lips so vigorously, although he felt they both were almost laughing because of the adrenaline and the absurd of the situation.  
“MART! ESSEX TRAIN IS NOT ANDY! IT WON`T BE WAITING FOR YOU!”  
“Wait a minute, I am coming!” Martin said, fighting for breath.  
  Alan was just lying atop of him now, breathing hard and feverishly licking his lips. Clasping the bottom side of Martin`s body to himself, he listened to Andy`s ramblings about some superstars who imagined that Essex trains would be waiting for them. Limousines could wait for the superstars, mini-vans and private jets could wait for them too, but Essex trains wouldn`t ever.  
“Don`t go!” Alan said somehow too feminine and wistfully.  
  He despised himself right at the moment he said it. He knew Martin had to go, and he didn`t plan to expose Martin or himself. What had happened was their private matter and nobody else`s business.  
“I don`t want to,” Martin admitted honestly, “but...”  
“I know,” Alan wanted to say the world to him now.  
  “I don`t want to go” melted all the ice and let out what he wanted to keep inside himself. He was eager to tell Martin that the day had been the pure hell for him, and how he was waiting for his mere glance, and how he nearly died when he heard that “nothing out of the common”. But that was totally unmanly, so he just touched Martin`s cheek and asked, “Tomorrow?”  
  Martin nodded. And at that exact moment they were pushed off the door by the Great Hurricane named Andrew! Alan shoved his hand quickly into Martin`s pocket, thoughtfully pulling his wallet out and trying to show it to Martin:  
“Here is your wallet, Mart, here it is,” as Alan`s other hand was hugging Martin`s shoulder, showing as much caress as it could. “Already returned, Andy?” he greeted Fletcher coldly. “Missed me?”  
“Oh, wha-what is that…ah, couldn`t it be, the wallet of mine!” Martin said cheerfully.  
  Fletch dragged him out to the street silently.  Alan stood near the window and looked at long-legged Fletch angrily walking down the street and Martin, who was somehow stately and blithely at the same time skipping behind his friend half a length. When Alan turned around to go back to the studio, he noticed Dan standing in the way and cleaning his eye-glasses with his T-shirt.  
“You should eat a lemon,” was his advice to Alan.  
“Why?”  
“To make your face shine not so bright!”  
  Alan thanked his senior fellow for the advice, estimating how long Dan could have stood there. Then he remembered what had happened before and realized that for the first time in his life he didn`t give a fuck. Dan wasn`t a fool after all.  
  He entered the room. Dave had just put the handset.   
“Whoah! You are so cheerful, Al,” Gahan said giggling. “That`s almost unnatural! How many people have you killed today?”


	4. Chapter 4

_I want you to understand that my malevolence is just a way to win.  
I want the name of the ruiner.  
I want matches in case I have to suddenly burn.  
I want you to know that being kind is overrated._  
  
  He was happy. Probably the first time in his life he was completely happy. Alan was sitting with his ear-phones on, smiling and daydreaming, moving some controllers up and down, professionally imitating the creative process. It wasn`t hard for him because he had just sampled Martin`s accidental exhale and now was making some sort of erotic groan.   
  He was consumed by this activity. Besides, tomorrow had already come. It was Friday. It meant that tomorrow would be Saturday and then Sunday. Alan was too eager to continue the banquet. Making love for the first time, being drunk after a sleepless night, was cool but obscenely unnatural. Well, because he actually wanted to perform more qualitatively and put his soul into it. For four o`clock in the morning he did fine, and it felt fucking awesome, but it was interesting to know what it could be like when done to the full extent. Martin was moaning erotically right into his ears, although he even didn`t know that, and Alan`s sexual fantasies went wild with it.  
  Although, he needed to confess he had lost half of his courage by the moment Martin came to the studio. Alan started shaking, not sure what to await, but Martin sat near, touching Alan`s arm with his own, with the obedience of a Japanese geisha and with the same inscrutable facial expression.  
  Alan saw that Martin was wearing a thin black sweater that quite frankly accentuated his bodily features and voluptuously clung to Martin`s shoulders, chest, and waist. The deep neck of the sweater and the rolled-up sleeves showed enough skin. Martin`s t jeans hugged his ass and hips and some other body parts that particularly interested Alan so tightly that it made Alan want to touch him there to check whether it was not too much. Alan took a closer look. Martin was shaved more carefully than usual. Alan could feel the smell of his skin. Martin wasn`t wearing any perfume as if he somehow surmised that Alan wasn`t a big fan of that stuff. It was just his very own scent mixed with the smell of the clean clothes, and it was the greatest aphrodisiac. Alan realized that Martin had prepared for their date. It was another turn-on. No, actually, Alan had also tried on about five shirts until he was satisfied with how it fitted him and showed his chest the right way. And how he should roll up his sleeves, and how to brush his hair back to look stylish, but, for God`s sake, Martin shouldn`t see that he`d done it on purpose. Still, the thought that Martin did all that, too, filled him with warmness.  
  Alan was not a fool and realized that for Martin it had been the first time with him. Martin hadn`t warned him and said nothing about it before and after. Well, there was no need for it as his enthusiasm and devotion compensated for his lack of experience. This little secret brought them two even closer that night. Martin was a man Alan respected and felt a big sympathy for, so he feared to touch some details in the conversation not to injure another man`s dignity. But inside, Alan felt that this little lie became some great reward for him. Some special prize that Martin would never confide to have given to him, most likely feeling rather ashamed of it than proud. But it was a step of his desire and trust towards Alan. He became his first man. Simply and without any pathos or drama. Alan feared that he could offend Martin by accenting that, but now he surely saw the seducing game that Martin had been playing with him from the start in a completely different light.   
  And now Martin was sitting here, dressed the way Alan liked and feeling no shame to show that he wanted to please and to belong to him. Alan could think of nothing in this world but of kissing Martin over from heels to top. It was a damn revelation he had only read about in some books before, and now the heat of Martin`s arm and thigh through his clothes told him that it was for real. It was the best working time, productive and useful, but he was eager to call it a day as soon as possible. They had been so close with Martin all day, and there was only a moment when their contact was broken off: when Dave laid on Martin`s back right between them and cheerfully shouted out loud:  
“AND WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?!»  
  Martin got tensed and arched his back like a scared cat. It was very surprising, because Alan knew Martin loved to be touched. Fletch sometimes squeezed him like a doll; Gareth, their sound producer, carried sleeping Martin in his arms, so why would Martin react to Dave like that? Dave hadn`t noticed - and was blessed by that - but Alan started thinking about it. All his connection to Martin was lost. He wanted to know why. He would remember not to forget this thing to research later.  
  They took a cab to go home. They were sitting in a backseat, their thighs touching, and Alan was trembling in appreciation. Wishing to hide his nervousness, he joked:  
“Feel sorry that you decided to go with me? Dave was so eager to go to the club with you and Mark today.”  
  Well, it seemed like a good joke to him. And he definitely felt suspicious about Dave.  
  Martin looked at him strangely. When Alan had already lost all hope to get an answer, Martin asked with a metal in his soft voice:  
“What exactly do you mean?”  
  Alan wanted to tell Martin that he was jealous about Dave because it seemed that Dave was trying to show Alan the superiority of his rights to Martin. When Martin rejected his invitation, apologizing, Dave started a scandal as if an angry wife refused by her husband to be accompanied on traditional weekly grocery shopping. Dave showed everybody that his most sacred feelings were insulted and stated that he had a legal right to Martin`s will. He almost burst into tears of resentment and brought Martin into emotional stupor. Everybody knew that you couldn`t push Martin, because if you did, he would submerge himself in intellectual paralysis and hibernation, from which it was impossible to take him out - with any artificial ventilation by the mouth-to-mouth method or  by any other method.  
“Dave, piss off,” Fletch said strictly. “He already said he is busy.”  
“I mean nothing, I was kidding”, Alan replied to Martin`s question in the taxi.  
  What the hell else he could say? He felt sort of a jealous paranoiac. Don`t trouble trouble until trouble troubles you. Several months had passed from one of his most significant talks with Dave. Martin and Dave acted like cat and dog when they were together. Dave exploded with fury from each word of Martin; Martin, who would usually remain calm, replied with hate so deep and hot that it was driving Dave insane, and he started such an intensive verbal flow that the ones who`d stay alive would envy the dead. Alan and Fletch, they dragged them both to different corners of the studio each evening, thinking that now they were fucked up as a group for sure and that Martin would never talk to Dave again. However, overnight they would miss each other, and in the morning both would smile and joke and rub against each other and behave like two hungry kittens waiting to be fed. They were like two angels.  
  But in the evening they would fight again.  
  So it was on that usual evening. Fletch dragged Martin from his fight with Dave to see a football match. Dave and Alan were sitting in a pub, drinking beer and waiting for them.  
  Dave complained about Martin that they couldn`t find a common language. Dave was sure he gave up everything for Martin, but nothing worked out right. Martin didn`t want to see or hear him, just closing himself from Dave completely. Dave tried to worm it out from Alan what Martin talked about him, as he noticed that Martin would spend much more time with Alan now. Alan wondered if Dave suspected anything, but no, Dave was as innocent as the Holy Virgin Mary.  
“Look, I wanna be closer with him,” suddenly Dave said.  
“Closer _to_ him?” Alan thought it would be more correct in English.  
“No, closer _with_ him,” Dave repeated stubbornly.  
  Well, it definitely made sense when Martin said that Dave loved to argue.  
“You know, we are friends, kind of. But I want us to be the best friends. Very close friends. I wanna know him like myself and feel him; I want to be closer with him.”  
  Alan sipped his beer and answered coldly:  
“Are you gay?” Well, an attack was the best defence in his case.   
“Why? No!” Dave wasn`t even offended, just shouted out joyfully, “I`ve got a girlfriend!”  
“Excuse me, sir,” Alan said, “it`s just not easy for me sometimes to understand your Essex dialect. I must confess I decided you wanted to have sex with him.”  
  He had a reason now to expect a tantrum from Dave for his rather aggressive joke, but Dave laughed and said sadly:  
“Oh, c`mon. He`s not like that.”  
  Both Alan`s eyebrows lifted up at the same time. Sometimes he felt sorry that he was the only one who could get those joke here. Dave understood his facial expression in a different way:  
“What? Him? You think he would…oh. I don`t know, you are older than me, Al, kinda you have more experience maybe… Am I wrong about that? No, I mean, sometimes I think that I`m wrong. He can stare sometimes, you know, closely, I`m starting to…uhm, it`s so hot that I forget that I have a girlfriend. I…catch my breath….and…”  
“He has poor eyesight,“ Alan cut off, “but it turns out to be not HIS problem.”  
“Oh, yeah…mmm…ok. So, I will remain heterosexual then,” Dave answered so sadly that both started laughing.  
  Alan liked Dave for his easy-going and simplicity. At that moment he had realized he felt bad about the circumstances that put limitations on their friendship. Although he couldn`t change them now.  
“I want to be friends with you, Dave,” he said honestly.  
“I am not gay!” Dave reacted immediately.  
“Frigging Essex!”  
“Focking London!” Dave retorted.  
  They started laughing again and roared until their friends returned from the football match, eager to celebrate the fact that “Arsenal” had won.

***

_I want to write my secret across your sky._  
I want to watch you lose control.  
I want to watch you lose.  
I want to know exactly what it's going to take.  
  
  So, now they came home. Next thing Alan remembered was how reality hit him as he felt liquid drops merging together between their naked bodies in a cool bedroom. It was hell fun to make love in a hurry, almost fully dressed, but this almost Victorian sense of two naked bodies in a dark bedroom, totally prepared to make love, together made it feel like the highest level of intimacy. Alan knew it wouldn`t be quick today. That`s why he was not in a hurry.  
  The moonlight, pale and subtle, was outlining the strange curve of Martin`s lips. They were not only smiling oddly - they seemed fuller and more enticing than ever. Alan felt he`d die from hunger if he didn`t touch them right now. He touched them with his finger, caressing Martin`s bottom lip, and Martin`s mouth opened a little more, catching Alan`s finger and kissing it as in gratitude for his caress. It was too much for Alan to bear, so he dug into Martin`s mouth spasmodically and felt it opening towards his movements more and more.  
  Unlock their lips - just to lock them again and again and again. The bedroom was becoming warmer and warmer - and not because of the central heating.  
“I love to make love to you,” Alan whispered.  
“I love the way you make me come,” Martin said through the clenched teeth not as tenderly as Alan expected, but his words penetrated Alan`s brain like a red-hot drill.  
  He rocked back grinning. Then he repeated his maneuver with the finger, sliding along Martin`s lips and making him suck his finger into his mouth. Martin obediently did what he wanted - well, almost, because he bit Alan`s finger in the end, so Alan slapped his face jockingly with wet fingers and hurriedly whispered:  
“If I do something you don`t like, just tell me. Understand?”  
“Yes. Touch me now.”  
  Alan moved down to his chest and caught Martin`s nipple between his index finger and his thumb. Not indenting to hurt but to show that he was there not to caress his body tenderly. Martin hissed, automatically rubbing his other nipple. It was painful for Alan to say what he said, but he had to, even though his brain was begging him to shut the fuck up and watch!  
“Don`t you dare to touch yourself when I am near you,” he hissed; fuck, he had just lost an erotic show, and only Martin`s grin made it clear that the sacrifice was worth it. “Unless I order!”  
  Martin`s hand moved downwards; he seemed to obey, but no, he was actually caressing his own navel to tease Alan more.  
“Then shut the fuck up, buddy,” very cheerfully said Martin, “do something.”  
  Alan couldn`t choose what to do first - to silence him or to say something nasty, but then he decided to go a less simple but more effective way. Slowly he went down the navel with short kisses right through Martin`s pubis to his thick cock, busily swallowing it to the middle at once. Couldn`t take more. As he expected, Martin`s humour was gone completely. He spread his legs, arching with sweet moans when Alan pulled his cock off his mouth and started to lick its head. Then he swallowed it again to move down the barrel, feeling his lips burning with lust as he sucked Martin`s cock.  
“More!” he heard when he left Martin`s dick and started to place kisses against his hips.  
  To this particular word he could listen day and night. He took into his mouth even more than he thought he was physically able, feeling he had control over the body underneath. He was captivated by the process of giving pleasure for pleasure only. Deliberately slow he was sliding his lips over Martin`s dick, stopping and not pressing too hard. He was caressing the lad`s flat belly and the inner side of his thighs slightly, with his fingertips only. Licking his own fingers from time to time to touch Martin again. He liked the erotic trance he was guiding Martin into, because he wanted to share what he had felt the previous night. He didn`t want to lose his head too soon that day - he wanted to enjoy their intimacy as long as he wold be able to. He caressed Martin like that for the whole fifteen minutes, so that his jaws hurt, but his ears weren`t tired of the quiet moans of rapture at all. He bit one of Martin`s nipples, then the other.  
“I want you,” Martin whined.  
  Oh, dear God, he must have had died and gone to heaven.  
“Please me.”  
“Fuck me in the mouth.”  
“As you wish, sir,” Alan smirked while getting astride him and sitting onto his bare chest.  
  The thought of fucking him hard in that uncomfortable and subordinate position hit him like a truck, tugging him from his erotic trance into completely different mood. Excitement choked his breath as he put his penis glans into Martin`s swollen lips. Martin`s hands were gripping Alan`s naked thighs, pressing harder when Alan pushed too far inside.  
“Holyfuckingcunt, oh, shit!”  
  It was fucking hot. He started to move his hips rhythmically, in and out, not too deep but really fast and persistently. Martin pressed his hands against Alan`s abdomen to somehow restrain his vigour; he moaned the way that made Alan`s eardrums explode, and he nearly came from that sweetest sound produced by the mouth occupied with his cock. Well, but Alan, you shouldn’t do that now!  
  He turned Martin upside down, so that his face was pressed into a pillow, hands behind his back. Pushing his legs to spread them apart as far as he could with his own knee. Martin was aroused enough to take pleasure from this kind of treatment. Alan was eager to tie Martin`s hands. Breathing heavily, he reached for his leather belt, wound it into an eight and then around Martin`s wrists, pushing them together to the point of pain, shoving the buckle pin into the hole. Martin`s reaction assured him that he was not the only one fucking overexcited animal in that room.  
  The pale moonlight probably lied, but Alan could swear he saw Martin`s hips move upwards to him as he slid, sweating, his cock  along Martin`s inner thighs, up and down and up and down again. Anyway, he had to check and to gain several minutes before he would fucking lose his head over their sex by an indefinable reason. Alan bit Martin`s triceps, then between his shoulder blades, making him arch. He licked his arms down to the belt that was tying them and placed his jaw on Martin`s naked ass to suck his fingers intentionally teasing him.  
“Take me,” that wasn`t unexpected, was it?  
  Alan`s cock was vibrating at the same frequency as that sound wave`s length. He decided that Martin was hard enough to receive him without any problem. But just in case he slapped his butt soundly to distract Martin`s nerves a little and to make his muscles relax. He knew that he freaking liked it, but he was shocked by Martin`s words that if he didn`t fuck him right now, he would finish the fuck alone. The pictures in his head were too hot, and he just shoved his buzzing cock between the slim thighs widely spread for his pleasure. The insertion seemed to sober Martin down a little bit, although Alan tried to be merciful, which was pretty hard in his state of arousal. But that was good because then Alan could shag him nice and slow, all the way up and down, while Martin was getting used to his presence inside. So, Alan started to move a little faster, feeling Martin helping him, fucking back and moving his ass towards Alan`s dick, as it made him feel better and better.  
  Alan came inside him, making Martin come too. He enjoyed the feel of his own sperm with his cock and hand when he pulled off Martin`s ass, continually caressing this particular thoroughly fucked place in Martin`s body, kissing his neck tenderly.  
“Drink,” Martin said.  
  Alan brought some wine and fooled around Martin, refusing to untie his arms and making him drink out of his hands. The wine was everywhere around them; it left red stains on the bed sheets and poured down Martin`s naked body. Alan didn`t give a fuck about the sheets, but he diligently licked it off Martin`s skin, turning them both on again. The night promised to be long, though.


	5. Chapter 5

  Several months had passed.  
  Alan was sitting hiding his face with his palm. Depeche Mode gathered in a body. They were listening to Maestro Gore`s demos. All of them: Dave in shorts, jolly as a sandboy, serious Andy, and Miller and staff. They were listening intently:

_There's a new game_  
We like to play you see  
A game with added reality  
You treat me like a dog  
Get me down on my knees  
We call it master and servant

  But only Alan was red as a tomato. Maestro Gore felt splendid. Dave was sitting near him, singing the refrain loudly right into Martin`s ear - he loved the provocation indeed. Martin was smiling enigmatically like Mona Lisa and squirmed from time to time when Dave`s breath or lips accidentally touched the sensitive skin under his ear. In Alan`s not so humble opinion, Dave was teasing Martin shamelessly - it was probably even more shameless than Martin`s revelation about their sexual practice. The other people in the room seemed to be truly blind if they couldn`t sense the air melting around those three.

_It's a lot like life_  
This play between the sheets  
With you on top and me underneath  
Forget all about equality  
Let's play master and servant  
  
  The problem was that Alan had a full erection when he heard something like that from Martin. He had it right now, too. He was recalling their last time: when Maestro was in especially fuckful and slightly bombed condition - which did not affect his sensibility to the other man`s caresses at all - and their shagging was a remarkably enchanting extravaganza that time.  
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” Dave applauded loudly. “Can we repeat it once more? Mart, you fucking son of a bitch, you rock! Huh, Al?”  
“Yes,” Alan said quietly.  
“Do you like it?” Dave asked.  
“No.”   
  Dave laughed out loud together with Andy and Daniel; they all found Alan`s gloomy face comically funny.   
“Oh, our Mister Good Boy is so embarrassed at our bad manners! Mart! You`ve made him blush!” Dave said sarcastically and started to sing along in the most obscene way he ever could:  
“Ooohhh, yeah…come on! Let`s play master and serva-a-ant! Oh, come on, Al, just give it to me!”  
“Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh!” Martin sounded loudly and clearly over the others.  
“Come back to earth, Alan, baby! People fuck here!” Dave was visibly flattered by Martin`s reaction to his joke, so he continued his mockery with more enthusiasm. “I understand, of course, that you haven`t been told in your conservatoires or by your grandmothers and grandfathers – lifelong members…members of the Royal Geographical Society…of Sussex – that people fuck doggy style, but you`re older than us, you`re a grown-up man, Alan! You could teach us!”  
  Martin was already crying with laughter, tears running down his face. Dave actually couldn`t get the whole hysterical humour of the situation for Martin, so he thought it was all about his own, unique and authentically Dave`s, drollery. Thus, he continued to scoff at Alan`s high blood, and delicate psyche, and the fact that a thought of anal-izing someone in a role-playing game shocked him. Martin was holding his belly and whimpering with laughter.  
  Alan removed his hand from his face; his lips became thin. He suddenly got so mad that he could hardly suppress the desire to hit Martin in the face right there, in front of everybody, and to say something very scabrous and dirty about how a couple of days ago Martin was kneeling, naked, and giving him his mouth and his ass like a good whore in all thinkable and unthinkable positions, and asking for more. He wanted to jump on Martin, collar him, and lustfully share with Dave his primeval rapture that made him cry hysterically when Martin had said those three and a half sacred words to him. He wanted to look into Dave`s eyes and ask him, “Do YOU know how your own guts and brain can explode from that happiest “I love you” scream under a swish of a leather belt making a fruity slap on a craved defenseless flesh underneath?! From another ecstatic cry, and then swish, and then again a portion of that deadly poison?!  “I. Love. You. Alan.” Do YOU, Dave, know how it can kick a hell out of you and how you spasmodically press your lips together not to sob aloud, just letting euphoric tears silently flow down your cheeks?! Because you go mad from the desire to entwine your body with the one beneath, to sink into your deep kiss, to go further under his skin, and stay like that in your desperate and unsatisfiable thirst for fusion and intimacy. When all you want is to throw off all defensive shackles and to cry like a baby, holding HIM with your whole body. Because that kind of “I love you”, it is killing you. It is totally wrong, because you are the one who has to be the strongest and to give pleasure to the one submissive to you. He shouldn`t be able to feel your limitations and break them, but he does because his “I love you” is much stronger than you can imagine. It`s a step beyond the bounds of sex and sensual delight, on the edge of pain. How to remain who you are and to bring that kind of pleasure? How to remain who you are when it`s tearing up your insides? How to do it when you are going blind with tears, and your hands are so eager to tenderly caress his sensual neck and his lips, and your lips are so willing to kiss his eyes and forehead? Because you mustn`t touch his lips with your own - it`s a taboo, as you will immediately lose control and take him at once in some hysterical oblivion. There it is, only forehead and eyes and neck, moaning desperately through your teeth the primitive: “Love you, love you, love you, baby, with every single cell of my body, with my every move, with my every breath. It`s ME who loves you - you`re just feeling my love, drinking it and getting high from it.” Making another slap, giving pain without giving pain, just to bring maximum pleasure, and hearing an ecstatic confession – all of this is so perversely and unnaturally glorious that you can`t describe it!” And there you go…they hadn`t even fucked each other yet to feel that. Alan hadn`t even fucked Martin but he was about to yell in orgasm.  
Alan wanted to explain everything to Dave clearly and vividly and then ask, “Do you fucking know, you, little bastard, that`s the moments worth living for?!”  
  Alan sighed and rubbed his face, especially his lips and jaw, because his anguish mingled with a severe attack of sexual frustration. He got fucking hard from it all, and it was a dangerous cocktail. But his good breeding, conservatoires, and grandmothers who were lifelong members of the Royal Geographical Society, as Dave had named them, did their part, so Alan regained his presence of mind. He sighed, staring at his own fingers, and silently asked Miller:  
“Do you really think that censorship will admit it into rotation?”  
  Miller was replaying “Get me down on my knees” and shaking his head, focused on a song:  
“This is good, I think,” he said, “I like it. Das ist gut, as they say here. Well, we`ll tell them this is a deep social satire. They would hardly dare show they don`t get it. Life fucks and rapes all of us in every imaginable position. Topical. Burning. We`ll release it as a single!”  
“What the fuck did you just say?!” Martin, Dave, and Andy choired.

***

  Things that happened afterwards were not entirely unexpected for Alan. It entered his life subtly and gently. Too gently and too subtly to decide anything.  Too imperceptibly to realize what had happened. He just walked into the studio one day and saw Dave nervously clutching his beer and giggling uncontrollably. Miller was screaming at him:  
“If you ever approach Martin Gore`s home closer than one hundred meters, I will call a policeman!”  
“So, one hundred and one are allowed then?” Dave giggled.  
“If I see you crawling his way, I will kill you. I`ll kick your guts out!”  
  Alan felt his eyebrows rise up in surprise. He had surely missed something from the last time he saw Martin. Dan was freaking mad. Dave looked strange. He was drunk and shaking and acting more weirdly than ever. Y` know, Dave behaving more weirdly than ever – that was a wake-up call! Alan stopped near angry Dan, who was standing in front of Dave with his hands on his sides and his glasses on the tip of his nose.  
“Something happened?” Alan asked, but no one paid any attention to him.  
  It was even stranger. He started to feel nervous.  
“What the hell were you both doing?” Dan asked angrily. “What the frigging fucking hell?!”  
  Dave burst out laughing - inadequately under the circumstances, from Alan`s viewpoint – and suddenly poked his finger right into Alan`s belly:  
“Ask Alan. He is a MASTER of those things. Oh, he surely can tell you what to do at nights!”  
  Alan gloomily slapped Dave`s hand.  
“Dave, are you fucking nuts?!”   
“I DON`T CARE WHAT ALAN DOES AT NIGHTS. LET HIM FUCKING SCORCH CARAVAGGIO`S PAINTINGS WITH A BURNER ON HIS FRIDGE IF HE LIKES! But Fletch has never complained about trying to resuscitate Martin after an attempt to intoxicate himself to death after that, fuck you sideways!”   
  Suddenly Dave`s face changed. The corners of his lips were looking down now, like some sad doll`s, and two big heavy teardrops slid down his cheeks.   
“He hates me, Dan!” he said sobbing. “He doesn’t  LOVE ME-E-E-E-E!!! Neither does he love you, by the way.”  
  The speed of switch in Dave`s emotions was astonishing. Again Alan had to slap his hand, more angrily.  
“Aye aye, sir, Martin told me by himself!”  
  Alan felt as if someone kicked his abdomen good - he forgot how to breathe. He hoped that he was still dreaming and all of that wasn`t real. Fucking bullshit. Anyway, he seemed to have managed to save his face, because Dan saw him closely but didn`t show any interest. All his interest was in Dave now.  
“Dave, I`ve warned you about Martin, haven`t I?”  
“Yeapp.”  
“Have you understood?”  
“Yeapp.”   
“Now get back to work, Dave!” Dan`s voice became calmer, so it relaxed Alan a bit.  
  Dave turned around, heading to the main room, but suddenly froze.   
“Daniel Miller!” he called.  
“What do you have to say to me, David?” Dan replied with the tone that could be more suitable for the school for mentally retarded children.  
“Dan, why doesn`t he love me?”  
“Dave, I`d be a lot more surprised if he`d found a reason to love you. Because I do hate you at the moment! So get thee done! Be gone already!”  
“But he did love me!”  
  Alan was praying silently to help this evening of revelations come to the fucking end. He had had enough already. But Dave slid his crazy glance at him and said:  
“It is HIM who turns Martin against me!”  
“Dave, if you are not satisfied with your relationships with other people, it doesn`t surely mean that it`s their fault or someone else`s,” Alan replied quietly and politely. “Who am I to judge you, but have you ever thought that it could be your own fault?”   
  Daniel hee-hawed loudly:  
“Oh dear, what would I do with this funny farm without you, Alan!”  
  Strangely, but Dave laughed too, although his eyes didn`t show he`d got Alan`s joke.  
“Dan! Tell him to love me!” Dave whined half-jokingly, but Dan howled at hearing that. “Dan! You are older than us! He will obey you! Tell him, Dan, damn ya?!”  
“Walk your way, Gahan, and don`t try my patience anymore `cause it has its limits!”  
  Alan automatically moved down the corridor after Dave, but Daniel called him:  
“Alan, come to my room for a couple of seconds. Is anything wrong with you?” Dan sounded very anxious, and Alan followed his gaze to find out he was holding his abdomen tightly, as if he had some colic pain.  
“No, I am fine, thank you.”  
  He followed Dan.  
“Need a pill?” Dan asked. “Don`t bear the pain!”  
  Alan started giggling foolishly at that good old parents` advice. “You don`t need to bear the pain!” Oh, dear God, if a pill could help everything! “You don`t need to bear the pain”, huh!  
“Don`t worry, I will die anyway,” Alan replied.  
“As you wish, lad. But you can call me if you need something. Take a seat; I will not keep you long.”  
  Alan sat on a couch near Miller`s table. Dan was sitting on the edge of it, his arms crossed. He rolled up the sleeves of his red checkered shirt and stared at his own wrists thoughtfully. His jaw muscles were moving angrily. Still, when he addressed Alan, his voice was calm and peaceful:  
“Alan, it`s just all I wanted to ask. I know you and Martin are pretty close now.”  
  Alan felt something stab his belly.  
“We are good friends, I think,” he replied.  
  Dan looked at him perplexed, for he thought that Alan didn`t need to specify.  
“Yeah, that`s what I am talking about. Can you…clarify what happened there? I mean…ask Mart?”  
  Alan lifted his eyebrows.  
“With God`s help. But what`s wrong, Dan? The last time I saw Martin and Dave and everybody, they were happy and joyful and even not too drunk. What`s happened?”  
“Well, from my point, it started like that. I was working early this morning. Later, about noon, I was distracted from my mesmerized staring at a financial report by a human screaming blue murder and the sound of a dull surface hitting a hollow surface. Or vice versa.”  
  Alan laughed nervously. Dan continued:  
“So, I went out of my office and saw Fletch trying to break Dave`s head against the sink, swearing the most obscene way I ever heard from that gentleman. My ears and brains melted as I tried to imagine all the things Fletch promised to do with him.”  
“Ha-ha-ha!” it was so hard for Alan to suppress his laugh.  
“So funny, huh?” Dan grumbled.  
“I`m sorry, Dan.”  
“So, while I was trying to save the face of your irreplaceable frontman and to isolate Fletch, who was out of his mind, Martin called and in a voice of a dying swan told me that he was unable to visit any of his deeply adored work places, for which he was terribly sorry, as he felt slightly sick. You know, I decided it was just a hangover and wanted to fuck him right into his scull for it, but suddenly Fletch asked me not to press Martin. I promised I would be as tender as a mother and would even breastfeed him if Fletch stopped beating the shit out of Dave and explained himself.”  
  Alan rubbed his face. He took a bottle of water in one hand and a glass in the other.  
“So, what did Fletch say?”  
“Fletch announced something like this, “I come. They`re there. The fuck I know what they`re doing; fighting. Yell heard from the beginning of Mart`s street. The door`s locked. I smell a clusterfuck!” Then Dave rushed out of Martin`s door, and Fletch saw Martin trying to make his all-time record for drinking C2H5OH, as much as possible at once – in order to die, as Fletch thought.”  
“Oh shit!” the glass fell from Alan`s hands, spilling the water on a carpet. “Excuse me.”  
“It`s all right, that was exactly what I said, too.”  
“I`ll clean it up,” Alan said and grabbed the broken glass, course cutting himself.  
  He froze, for some reason stunned by the sight of his own blood flowing down his finger.  
“I`ll do it myself,” Miller pushed him back onto the couch. “I`ve had enough of human losses today in your pack of mates. So, Fletch said he had saved Martin for future generations with a good old two-fingers-up-the-throat method and a cold shower, and had made him sleep it off. In the morning he checked the patient`s vital signs - moaning, swearing, and begging to be shot down - and handed Mart to his mother and sisters, who had just returned from their French leave. He announced that their son and brother poisoned himself with an oatmeal cookie at five o`clock tea, but he was a lot better now, and they could even try to give him some soup or a pair of toasts – and left for the studio.”  
“Have I got you right?” Alan asked. “You are trying to say that Martin has displayed a kind of suicidal ideation?”  
“I like the way you put it. Yes, some suicidal ideation indeed, with his attempts to die from self-intoxication.”  
“But why?” Alan asked. “I`ve never suspected anything like that in him. Why would he do that?”  
“That IS exactly what I want you to ask Martin.”  
  Alan laughed in a high-pitched voice - absolutely foolishly, in Dan`s view - though it was not typical of him. He wanted to tell Dan that it was easier to teach a lamp post to recite Kant than to have a heart-to-heart talk with Martin. But Miller`s face was dead serious. Alan licked his finger to stop the bleeding - and to hide his smirk, too.  
“I just want to know where we`re heading. I mean, does it happen to be so serious? How come those motherfuckers who fight here every day have suddenly become so bleeding fucking sensible?” Dan said. “I want you to talk to him because you are the one who can talk to them all, and they trust you without pretending to have dementia or falling into anabiosis.”  
  Alan smirked; he knew what Dan was talking about. Well, he desperately wanted to know the truth already; of course, he had his own personal reasons.  So, he nodded and got back to his work, sucking his finger thoughtfully. He was freaked out, to say the least. “Neither does he love you, Martin told me” was tearing his mind apart and made his heart jump. No, Alan knew Dave was quite a loose-tongued bitch indeed, but why would he misinterpret Martin`s words? There is no smoke without fire. At that point he realized that Martin could have already been dead by then. A wave of nausea swept over him. He suddenly thought his feelings were far too egoistic. He went to the telephone and called Martin; his sister picked up and told him Martin was sleeping. Alan went to his work area somnabulistically - as if he could work today! Why, he imitated some labour orgasm for two hours, but the thought that he was to go and see Martin was haunting him.  
  Dave couldn`t be still either. He feared Fletch, and Alan felt strangely sick of him. Dave started to beg permission to go to Ramones’ gig. A cigarette, three coffees, a cigarette; Alan didn’t know why he was staring at the monitor any more.  
“Ramones` gig was last week”, cut off Dan. “What did I tell you about Martin?”  
“What if he needs something?” Dave suggested.   
“If he needs something, Alan can give it to him!”  
“But…why Alan?!” Dave asked more aggressively.  
“Because Fletch can`t stay at Martin`s house every night! He has his own life!”  
“Dan, no problem with that,” Fletch began, “I am Martin`s neighbour. What`s the point for Alan to go to that ass of Earth? He kind of can be beaten there just because they don`t know his mug yet and he looks like he`s not from the block…”  
  But Dan interrupted him:  
“I need you today, Fletch, for some financial stuff.”  
“It`s not hard for me at all,” Alan gave voice at last.  
“So go now!” Dan said impatiently.  
“What about me?” asked Dave. But his voice remained the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.  
  In the train, Alan had scrutinized _The Times_ , trying to distract himself from thoughts. He read all adverts, including ones for lost pets, counted numbers in stock market data, and meditated for some time on a shot of Lady Diana in a new dress beside her husband. The process captured Alan, and stupid thoughts gnawed at him no more.  
  Using a map he reached Martin`s house and knocked on the door. It was opened by a woman who must have been Martin`s mother. He said his name was Alan Charles Wilder, and that he was a musician from London, Martin`s colleague, and that their labour collective had sent him to check on the patient and ask if he needed anything. Even if she was surprised, she didn`t show it.  
“Please come in! Thank you, he feels much better now. I don`t think we need help, but once again thank you for your kind attention.”  
“It`s our duty. No, it`s nothing, really. I am sorry to disturb you, Mrs Gore. You have such a nice house.”  
“Oh, thank you, young man! Give me your jacket, Mr Wilder, I will put it in the wardrobe. Martin`s room is upstairs. Martin!” she called louder, “you have guests from work!”  
“Which one?” Martin answered warily.  
  The sound of his voice broke the ice inside Alan`s stomach, and it all started to feel so natural as if nothing had happened.  A secret hope that everything would be fine and nothing would ever change rose in him like a phoenix from the ashes. He didn`t realize how much he had been worried until he heard his voice.  
“It`s me, Mart,” he said entering the room.  
“Al?!”  
  Martin was sitting on his bed, one leg under his butt, and playing something absent-mindedly on a guitar. He seemed really fine. Well, he was a little bit pale, and his face in general seemed strange, but in a creative sense the day was obviously more productive for him than for all of them. Alan wished he could ask Martin, “What the heck are you doing, you little motherfucker?! How can you behave so devil-may-carishly?!” But he couldn`t find proper words not to trigger Martin`s emotional outburst – at least until he would know what had provoked Martin`s breakdown. Anyway, it looked like Alan should play a grown-up there.   
“Here I am,” he said gloomily. “How are you?”  
“Would you like some tea?” Martin`s mother appeared in the doorway.  
“Thank you, Mrs Gore, please don`t worry about me!”  
“Oh, Mr Wilder, it`s nothing at all. I`ve just made tea and I`d be glad to treat you to some!”  
  Martin stood up from his bed in one fluid motion, put his guitar onto the floor and touched Alan`s shoulder.  
“C`mon,” he whispered, “all resistance is vain. It will just prolong your sufferings.”  
  Alan followed Martin downstairs, staring at his reddish blond fluffy nape and feeling all range of contradictory emotions at once.   
“Please my mother,” Martin said quietly, but Alan heard it all. “So rarely has she got a chance to talk good English to someone of my friends. She`s happy I`ve met somebody decent at last.”  
“Oh, I don`t know, Mart. I am so flattered by your words, but, you know, deep inside I am not sure the fact you`ve met me is a reason to make your mother happy,” Alan retorted sarcastically.  
  The loud and joyful “hah-hah-hah-hah” showed that the patient was more alive than dead.   
  Anyway, the strong black tea cheered Alan up, for he had been hungry since the morning. He worked hard on bread and butter and cookies, but it did not prevent him from discussing Lady Di`s new gowns with Mrs Gore – she had also read _The Times_ , including adverts for lost pets and stock market data. Martin`s elder sister hung around them for a while but soon lost all interest in Alan, as he paid no attention to her except mentioning that he had two brothers.  
“What do they do for a living?” Mrs Gore asked.  
  As soon as she learned they were classical musicians, Mrs Gore melted completely and just sat there and listened to Alan`s story about his studies in musical college. Well, actually he didn`t say he had left his family with some sort of a scandal and hadn`t talked to them for a couple of years by then. He decided this information was excessive at that moment. Probably, he wanted to enjoy the feeling of family warmth he had lost some time ago and now suddenly regained. Alan didn`t have the guts to spoil that magic moment.  
  Martin stood silent. His face showed that he was happy to keep quiet for a while, and that he was deeply thankful to Alan for the opportunity. Alan looked at him askance from time to time and noticed that his hands were shaking, but he carried himself well. Leaving out of account that he almost dropped his tea-spoon five times in a row, he bore up inhumanly well.  
  Martin`s big white dog came to greet them and ate Alan`s last toast at once. Mrs Gore tried to send the dog out, but he preferred to hide under Martin`s chair, completely forgetting that he was much bigger now. Martin laughed and patted the dog`s neck and ears:  
“Go away, boy,” he said, and the dog didn`t try to disagree and left as his master said.  
  Alan thanked Mrs Gore for the tea and went back upstairs to Martin`s room.  
“So, what`s happened after all?”  
  If he didn`t ask now, he would never do.  
“Erm...I…probably got drunk,” Martin sat down on his bed again.  
“I am aware of that fact,” Alan considered all the pros and cons and sat right near Martin. “That`s not what I am asking you about.”  
“I believe I got drunk and…that`s all, that`s it…I am almost sure of it,” Martin repeated.  
“Ah, Fletch told us everything. And how he resuscitated you, too,” Alan retorted calmly.  
“Everything?” Martin asked.  
“Almost,” Alan answered, “but with this _almost_ I can`t sleep, can`t eat, can`t do anything.”  
“What?” Martin asked with the most innocent and sad of all the available tones.  
“Four simple letters. D-A-V-E.”  
“So what?” the same word as it had been, but some thorns were almost showing now on Martin`s skin.  
“That is exactly my question, Martin. So what?” Alan asked through the clenched teeth.  
“I`ve told you already that nothing happened.”  
“Martin,” Alan crossed his arms on his chest nervously, “I hate ultimatums, and I am very sorry, but if you refuse to talk to me right now, I will leave,” Alan was pretty stunned with his own courage to say that, but there was no other way to win. “I will not just leave your room, Martin - I will leave your life in a very wide sense because it all fucking hurts my heart, and you are fucking around. I was not sent to you to play cat and mouse!”  
“I can`t talk about that,” Martin moaned silently but desperately.   
“So, I can go now?” Alan asked.  
  He stood up to make his intentions clear. Martin embraced his own knee and froze staring bluntly at the wall. The clock was ticking the long seconds away, but he showed no sign of life.  
  Alan crossed the room to see Martin`s vinyls. His eyes were blunted; he didn`t see what he was looking at. At that time they all didn`t know yet that Martin was a great professional artist to keep a pause, so Alan just hoped this pause would end before his patience was violently tried. But it was not that simple: Martin stayed in his anabiosis and obviously felt good there. Much better than Alan who was nervously scratching himself; in his heart the hell fire of hate started to rise. He almost reached the door when he heard something he didn`t expect to hear. He hoped that Martin would surrender and say something like ‘please don`t go’.  
“Break up with me,” Martin said.  
  Alan thought he misheard.  
“Leave me. I hurt you. I don`t want to, actually.”  
  Well, he was ready to go - until Martin asked him to. Martin`s voice was too serious and calm, but the point was rather harsh, so he sat down on Martin`s bed again. Then he took a pillow and lay down parallel to Martin.  
“You know what, Mart?” he said thoughtfully. It had grown dark by that moment, but they didn`t turn on the light. “I know it already. And still, I`m here. Or even _that is why_ I`m here. You know why?”  
“Why?” Martin answered with his lips only.  
“Because our relationship means something to me. Because it happens that you mean something to me. I know you get sick from that sort of banal talks about love, but I respect you...”  
“I don`t deserve any,” Martin replied surprisingly hard but not aggressively.  
  Alan even half rose on the bed to see Martin better. Ah, come hell or high water!  
“Do you love Dave?”  
“I can`t say that I am sure of that fact at the moment,” Martin replied.  
  Alan`s guts were turning into hellish spirals, but he decided to survive. He wanted to hear more of what Martin would say.  
“I was drunk,” Martin said.  
“I think I`ve heard it before,” Alan replied.  
“And he came in.”  
“Came in?!”  
“Through the window,” Martin specified. “Sometimes it`s easier to go in or out here. I use this way myself quite often.”  
“Never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo,” Alan recited, looking outside Martin`s window to see the way with his own eyes.   
“Well…he knows everything about us,” Martin said calmly.  
  Alan nodded. He had already realized that, but he couldn`t understand why the fact was so shocking for Dave. Well, that interested him most.  
“He asked why am I worse than him. I mean, why is he worse.”  
  Oh, it explained everything. Alan bit his thumb not to spit out something that he would regret.  
“Why is he worse than you?” Martin scratched his knee thoughtfully. “I can`t answer such sort of questions, to be honest. So, he asked why he couldn`t have what you have.”  
“What is it?”  
“It is me.”  
  Alan had to confess that no breathtaking thriller could compare to Martin`s monotonous speech.   
“And what happened next?” he asked through the gritted teeth.  
“Nothing,” Martin answered. “Well, something had happened, actually. But I felt really sick. I don`t know what I did wrong, but I have never been hurt so deeply…I`ve never felt so…”  
“Fucked up,” Alan prompted.  
“Fucked up,” Martin agreed.  
“You love Dave,” Alan repeated, and it wasn`t a question any more, although Martin answered:  
“I`ve never put it that way.”  
  The worst thing was Alan knew Martin wasn`t lying. At the same time, he didn`t disagree. So, that was a question of terminology.   
“May I smoke?”  
“To the window.”  
  They both turned round to some hands-and-knees positions and shoved their faces outside the window, staring at the street lamp light like a lump on a log and trying to light cigarettes with trembling hands.  
  Alan realized that now he had three feelings at once, and he fucking didn`t have a clue what to do. He knew that the band had formed long ago before he joined them, and they had their laws and limitations. He understood it was not that simple with Vince, too: in fact, those charming nice guys, Dave, Martin and his personal assistant Fletch, pushed him out. Dave, Martin, Fletch…ah, he almost forgot Dan. Dan was on Martin`s side now as well. Dave treasured too much his position of the second person in the hierarchy, and Martin never pushed anyone, although he was pretty suggestible. Up to a point. He had his inner core, and if he had it, you could try to knock a nail into his forehead - he`d probably miss it.  
  Alan knew that Dave was unwilling to give Martin to him mostly because of that - Martin was something that was his. His, not Alan`s. So…that`s why he actually went to Martin`s place to finish their relationship but then suddenly saw he had no reason to think that Martin was dishonest with him. Everything had happened exactly how he told Alan!  
  So, he knew now that Martin didn`t lie to him. And if he said that nothing had been between them two, Alan had to believe him. There couldn’t be, aside from some sort of interest in each other, and there wouldn`t if he hadn`t appeared. He, Alan, diverted Martin`s attention from Dave and became more interesting for him than Dave was. Nothing would ever happen between Martin and Dave. He felt it was his fault that it had happened between them that day. Dave`s feelings were so awfully animal and predictable; but then, he felt jealous indeed for his sudden rival, because Martin`s feelings were never predictable. To be honest, Alan felt like telling Martin that without him those games with Dave would hardly continue, but the thought that he could go down that far to play at the same field with Dave made him sick.  
  Anyway, it was him who had tea with Mrs Gore, and it was him, not Dave, who was now standing on all fours with his ass in the air on Martin`s bed and smoking at his side in some mutual fucking withdrawal.  
  It was dark outside. The street lamp light hit his eyes too bright. Alan looked at his watch and realized that it was almost nine o`clock. What a surprise! He thought that only half an hour had passed from that tea ceremony.   
“I have to go, I think,” he said hesitating, for he felt uncomfortable to hang around Basildon at night.  
  If he had to go, he had to go now!  
“I don`t want you to go,” Martin said.  
“You said “leave me”, that was what you said,” Alan replied. “You made me sure that you are going to get rid of me.”  
“I didn`t mean it.”  
  Alan`s sarcastic manipulation didn`t impress Martin much.  
“I will never tell you to leave of my own will.”  
  Wow, that sounded like words of love. Besides, it started raining outside, and there, in Martin`s room, it was warm. It strangely felt like home. Alan didn`t know what would happen next - he just thought that to stay was the best idea ever. Even if he would blame himself the next day, it looked great!   
“I find your original idea to canoodle, as you could name it, with your family behind the wall pretty perverted,” he told Martin laughing.  
“We will be quiet,” Martin said, sending his cigarette stub somewhere over the neighbours` fence.  
  Alan wanted to comment against it, but he had a choice - to eat his own stub or to end running around the house and asking where to drown it; so, he just repeated the manoeuvre. Martin shut down the window, and Alan grabbed his leg right over his knee not to let Martin stand up.  
“And fast.”  
“I can`t be quiet with you,” huskily said Alan.  
“I am a boy. I can find something to shut you up,” cynically but tenderly Martin said, moving his leg to escape, but Alan just tightened his grip, making Martin fall down on him. He was caressing Martin`s thigh through his pants from the inside, just where it was necessary. Martin gasped over his ear, and it obviously made his day.  
“Or you can sleep on a folding bed, if that so…”   
“I believe a folding bed will be creaking far too loud if I do,” Alan found his lips, feeling that they were searching for his, too.  
  They twisted in a tight lock, unable to be apart even for a second, because when they did, it felt like being cut off from a magical fresh spring. Their bodies came to life as their lips entwined. Alan put his palms under the belt of Martin`s light-blue jeans, and now they were lying somewhere beneath his waist. Martin`s lips slid down onto his chest, kissing it in the shirt opening and making Alan arch his back and draw his hands down further, unashamedly displaying his desire.  
  He felt wanted as always. And he felt skilful. That was the thing that got him hooked on Martin, apart from the pure pleasure of shagging someone. Alan wasn`t much more experienced at that time. He four-flushed like hell because he got hard from Martin`s interested stare addressed to him. He was afraid he would lose his courage in the process…but he actually forgot about it. It seemed so natural, what they both were doing. Not at the point that it did not turn him on - oh, fuck no! Of course, he would go insane from the thrill he felt when sitting all day and planning their next encounter; but it just all happened so naturally. It was easier with Martin than with a girl, because Martin was a guy; he knew what the other guy wanted, and Alan knew that too. He learned to see what Martin wanted just from the look on his eyes. It wasn`t difficult because Martin was hard every time, almost.  
  When Alan started to see Martin from the sexually frustrated point of view, even he was surprised to know how often Martin appealed to sex in his own routine behaviour. Martin`s long stare; the way he licked his lips; his manner of speech, probably annoying at first, slow and arrogant and provoking, hiding all the sins under the baby-like appearance, shining with the most charming of the smiles. All those Martin`s features suddenly were brought in a sensual alignment, and Alan realized that it all was for a good reason. Martin wasn`t flirting with people, but he made them think about sex. Up to a point, he made them think about sex with him. Devil may know if he realized it himself – barely, Alan thought; it was just his nature.  
  Martin was like a cat. Independent when full up, and so greedy for caresses. Why not stroke a cat? See, he`s hanging around, purring, and fawning upon you? You are a frigging asshole if you don`t stroke the cat - it`s against  human nature! But if you don`t want to stroke him, he has never meant it; he just would fuck you and the fact that you exist, too!  
  If even Alan himself gave up his brain to the pleasure of that cat and only months later realized what he had done, Dave with his animal sensuality was moving towards Martin`s call instinctively. Unlike Alan, Dave was totally free from self-reflection bouts and pangs of humiliated self-conscious that had to follow the sordid desires of its master. Dave would fuck those kind of problems and let go! He didn`t give a damn that this sex-appeal wasn`t applied to him alone. Alan saw that Fletch behaved like enchanted; sometimes even Dan, whose attitude to Martin was sceptical enough, acted as if Martin put them all under some sort of mass hypnosis.  
  But Alan was the one who suffered most, for aside of him no one associated all this Martin`s sex-appeal with the reminiscence of his naked skin against their naked skin; convulsive breathing; whimpering in unison with the rhythm of their over-excited cock; his rushing heart under their hand; his sweetest moans exploding in their mind. Alan was the one to suffer from the fact that seeing Martin`s stare under those heavy eyelids with long fair eyelashes and his mouth swollen from their kisses, he desperately wanted to lay that body precisely and cynically on a control board and make with it all that he really wanted to.

***

  Anyway, they had to break their kiss. Alan was standing in the center of Martin`s room in a penalty position, smiling like a retarded and covering his erection with the Iggy Pop`s _The Idiot_ vinyl. Martin was playing mommy`s good boy, and Alan couldn`t help enjoying such a hypocritical artistic action.  
  Oh, it is so dangerous in Basildon at night! And his colleague lived so far from here! Alan slobbered over a variegated pillow-case on his folding bed when trying to help Mrs Gore, shifting the vinyl from one hand to the other. Martin was biting his lips not to burst out laughing, because unlike Mrs Gore he perfectly felt Alan`s pain and passion for Iggy Pop`s works at that moment. So, when at last the beds were made and the lights turned off, Alan jumped to the door, locking it with a key and swearing quietly, dived to Martin`s bed under his blanket, silently grabbed him, and pulled him atop of himself, continuing just from the place they`d intermitted.  
  They woke up with the third ring of the alarm clock, swearing and trying to get dressed and eat something on the run. Fletch was waiting on the corner of the street on the way to the station, impatiently passing up and down a Bazildon side road. Well, Fletch was waiting for Martin, actually. He was surprised to see Alan, but there was no time for a sophisticated small talk, as their train was to leave in ten minutes or so; besides, sleepy and malicious Alan was not in the mood to talk, so he just shook Fletch`s hand and kind of greeted him. Fletch shook Martin` hand as well and spit:  
“Hurry up, we are almost late.”  
  And ran up the street at a noble pace. Martin was somehow bouncing beside him, and Alan was trying to accommodate, changing his allure from Fletch`s to Martin`s but anyway feeling rather uncomfortable. So, when they reached their train, he was so tired that he just crashed out onto Fletcher`s shoulder as soon as they found their seats. Martin was sleeping opposite, with his face pressed against the train window.

***

_I want to see you insert yourself into glory._  
I want your touches to scar me so I'll know where you've been.  
  
  Those images of the past, one brighter than another, filled Alan`s mind unexpectedly. He was sitting in Miller`s office aware of the date, but alcohol warmth flowing down his body was the best lubricant for his memories, making them bloom like a spring garden.  
  Miller`s voice was soothing. He was speaking about Martin`s divorce and all that Santa Barbara soap opera. He told Alan about the musician fired by Martin and gone right to Dave`s open arms. About life and customs in the village of California, and also about all Mr Gore`s escapades. Alan laughed at this heart-wrenching tragedy. No, it was not comradely, and it wasn`t good in a masculine way at all, but he was happy that Martin had divorced Susanne. Well, Miller was really worried about Martin`s drinking too much now - in his case it did mean something! He had never appeared onstage without having had a bottle or two, as he knew him, and he was almost sober. As Martin explained, that helped him release terror.  
 “You fear people?” Alan used to ask him.  
“No. It`s nothing in particular. Just…I just fear.”  
  Alan would laugh at him until he saw Martin`s panic attack with his own eyes. After that he decided it would be really better to let Martin drink. It wasn`t that obvious, by the way, whether he was drunk or not. When they were young, one could never see that clearly in any of them. They never behaved more inadequate than they were when they were buzzed. Although, were they adequate when sober at all?  
  Miller told him the story of Martin`s deadly combat for his children and of division of property.   
“One must be an idiot to divorce in California!” Alan said.  
“That was exactly what I`d said,” Dan nodded. “Martin told me that one must be an idiot to be born Martin Gore. I couldn`t find an answer to that.”  
  Alan hooted with laughter. He couldn`t help it. He was laughing loud, and tears were flowing down his face. He probably hadn`t laughed like that for ten years or more. Unaccustomed, he even felt bad from that kind of wicked laughter - he was fighting for his breath now, and his stomach hurt.   
“Shall I pour you some more whiskey?” Miller asked carefully.  
“Go ahead!” Alan answered.  
“Actually, I was quite surprised that he started talking about you,” Miller`s tone was very serious now. “Jonathan told me that Martin`s Santa Barbarian boozing companions confessed they were forbidden even from saying your name.”  
“Oh, now, that`s something interesting,” Alan smirked.  
  Miller was probably afraid to hurt him by telling that, but Alan wasn`t hurt at all. So, HIS feelings were still alive. Even if they were closer to hate, that was much better than nothing.  
“So he asked you to talk to me, right?”  
  Maybe it was the booze, but Alan felt that long-forgotten feeling of inadequate rapture was starting to warm him up inside.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

  Three words.  
  These three words broke him.  
  Broke his little world and tore down his fragile feeling of happiness, sureness, and trust. Ripped apart his brain and his insides. Pulled the rug out from under his feet. Simply saying, they killed him. Only three words.  
  Martin came into the studio early, before the others, and announced without even saying hello, his eyes down:  
“I fucked Dave.”  
  If Alan had been smarter, he`d have reacted some other way. If Alan had been more unconcerned, he`d have reacted some other way. But he couldn`t be smarter and more unconcerned, so he slapped Martin on his face wordlessly. Martin bumped against the wall and, as wordlessly, just rushed away through the door like a bullet.  
“Cunt,” said Alan to himself.  
  He automatically reached for his jacket, pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter with the shaking hands, and went out into the small rain and fog to have a smoke. He stood there for a long time with his cigarette unlit, staring bluntly. He never knew it could hurt like this before. From one point, they`d promised nothing to each other. From that point, they both were grown-up and independent gentlemen with the right to be themselves. But it hurt like hell as if something was tearing up his guts. And…it was Dave. Fuck him sideways!  
  Fifteen minutes had passed until Alan was able to try to lit his cigarette, but it was so wet that he didn`t succeed. He scolded and threw it away onto the lawn, and got another one from his pocket. He didn`t care about the raindrops rolling down his hair and face; he was reflecting what was more appealing to him now - to kill Martin, to kill Dave or to die himself.  
  The first nervous drag brought him back to reality a little – at least he started seeing what was going on around. Fletch passed him and said something, but Alan could not hear clearly enough yet. The second drag on the cigarette. Fletch came closer:  
“Hey, why the heck are you soaking here?» He was definitely surprised. Alan wanted to answer, but his lips were convulsing. So, he just held out his arm with the pack of cigarettes. Fletch took his pleasure from Alan`s offer, lit his cigarette, turned away, then suddenly turned back looking at Alan amuzed:  
“What… Are you crying here? What`s happened?”  
“No, it`s just rain,” Alan answered when he realized that Fletch was right. “Or,” he sniffed, “smoke…got into my eyes.”  
“Where`s Mart?” Fletch asked.  
  Alan didn`t find what to answer. He shrugged.  
“When I`m with you, baby, I go out of my head! I just can`t get enough! I just can`t get enough!” Dave`s buoyant voice singing Vince`s hit pierced the grey rainy street.  
“Cunt,” Alan said again. This word became his own hit for today.  
“Hi there, Dave!” Fletch stretched out his hand to greet him.  
“Hi there, Andy! Hello there, Al!”  
  Alan pretended he didn`t see Dave`s hand, but nodded very politely and tried to stretch his lips in some grimace supposed to look like a friendly smile.   
“I hear your football team lost yesterday,” announced Dave, laughing about his own sparkling sense of humour.   
  The fucking Essex bugger was glowing with happiness! Alan wished he could shove Dave`s happy round mug against the pavement, but he didn`t want to initiate Fletch into the intimate details of his love life. Besides, Alan was as sure that Dave would shout out everything he knew and what Alan didn`t have a clue about as in the fact that his name was Alan Charles Wilder.   
“Nonsense,” he said through the clenched teeth. “We`ll win back next time.”  
  Dave laughed again, showing his teeth.  
“Dream on, dream on,” he said. “Where`s Mart?”  
  Definitely, it was the most popular question at the moment.  
“Here I am,” Martin said silently, stepping out of the fog. He greeted no one - just passed through, not even looking at them.  
  Alan felt as if something hit his stomach again. Oh, dear God, if only he could just get drunk as soon as possible! How would he work? How would he communicate with Martin at all? How? Hell, hit the road from here, away from this fucking band, before it`s too late. If only he`d known how it would all have turned out! But he`d thought he had time then!  
  Dave ran after Martin like a happy puppy, losing all interest in the comrades immediately, but continued singing: “We slip and slide as we fall in love, and It seems I just can`t get enough, ohhh!”  
“Lord, what perverted gibberish,” Alan said.  
“We are wide awake,” replied Andy.  
“Was he writing it sober?”  
“We don`t know. But we believe it`s better than ‘Hey, you`re such a pretty boy. P-R-E-double T-Y’.”  
“Ha!” Alan laughed. “I`m happy I was out of touch with your creativity before I joined you.”  
“Martin presumes you are lying,” Andy answered coldly.  
“Hey, lads, let`s get in already,” Dave called them, opening the door.  
“Coming,” Andy said. “Let`s cease this constitutional walk for now.” And went straight into the studio.  
  Alan didn`t have a choice. He couldn`t stay there forever.  
  Martin threw his coat onto the arm-chair in a fit of temper and ran upstairs. Dave broke into a gallop after him with his jacket on. Alan left his in the hall. For several minutes he hesitated, while Andy was unwrapping his scarf off and rolling it neatly to put it onto the shelf. Alan stepped to the arm-chair, took Martin`s coat, and pedantically slowly removed all drops of water from it with his hand, put it on a hanger, and then hung it into the wardrobe.  
  Andy was looking at him askance.  
“It`s raining. It will never get dry otherwise,” with no reason Alan started to defend his actions. Judging by Andy`s face, he didn`t have to. Alan blushed.

***

_I want you to watch when I go down in flames._  
_I want a list of atrocities done in your name._  
_I want to reach my hand into the dark and feel what reaches back._

  Miller was gone to Berlin for a week.  
  They were sitting in the studio, four of them.  
  Alan put on headphones - it freed him from the necessity of imitating any kind of social interactions. Dave was still shining like a frigging supernova; technically, it was a good thing because his voice had never sounded so tenderly, passionately, and clear. Alan was listening almost spellbound.  
  Martin was melancholically boozing it up in the corner. Silently, calmly, and methodically. With his stare fixed on the ceiling and his painfully erotic profile turned to Alan. The picture was driving Alan insane. He failed to find any sign of shame or repentance in those angelic features. Obviously, Martin wasn`t happy, but there was no sign of guilt on his face either. Even the resentment he must have felt towards Alan showed there like some sort of arrogant contempt.  
  Alan was cross as a bear. His anger was scorching him from the inside. He was mad at Martin`s  I-don`t-give-a-fuck mask. It was written on his face that he wouldn`t beg for forgiveness. Alan was mad at himself for slapping Martin on the face, because thus he had exposed himself. Now Martin could be drowned in his resentment easily, and elegantly wave his tail and dump Alan for Dave. And let that underage retard rejoice. Splendid! Magnificent! He had been forced to make a perfect choice: to lose or…to lose! Thank you, Martin. Thank you very much indeed. Was that all the fucking trust, their efforts, and their relationship was worth?  
  Alan felt he`d been dragged through the mud. Cunt. Whoever in this fucking world - but NOT Dave! He hated Martin at the moment. He didn`t want to lose.  
  Martin yawned and went downstairs minding his own business. Andy asked him to bring a folder from Miller`s office on his way back. Everybody knew: when Andy was seated, only a crane could move him.  
“With great relish,” Martin said.  
  Alan made up his mind. He put his headphones off and followed Martin. He shouldn`t have done that, but it was a question of life and death. Later he cursed himself for that. But now he whispered in Andy`s ear, asking him to hinder Dave by hook or by crook because he deadly needed to talk to Martin confidentially. Even if Andy was surprised, he didn`t show it and said:  
“No shit. In fact…are you…alright? ”  
“Yes. I am not. Andy, please, it is very important to me. I need to talk to him, but I don`t know how to do it. I should try.”  
“Any punch-up?” Andy frowned.  
“Nothing that will make you worry, cross my heart.”  
“Okay,” Andy said gloomily, “if I hear something, I will kill you both.”  
“Can I kiss your cheek?”  
“Fuck off…”  
  Nevertheless, Alan shoved his nose into Andy`s cheek just because he couldn`t refuse the temptation to make him mad a little. He waited until Martin came inside Daniel`s office and shut the door, then slid down the banister and opened the door sharply, staying in the doorway not to let Martin out.  
  Martin was confusedly staring at the shelves with folders, desperately trying to find the needed one.  
“Hit me,” Alan said.  
  Martin didn`t look at him and with an eloquent gesture encouraged Alan to fuck off.  
“I am serious,” Alan insisted. “Mart, in this particular situation, you know, I am physiologically unable to beg your pardon. I find it very unnatural. My organs of articulation are paralyzed by the mere thought of…you know what I mean.”  
  Surprisingly, Martin nodded. He was still showing his profile, but he heard Alan.  
“So I can tell you nothing,” Alan finished.  
  A normal person would ask, ‘’Then why the hell have you come here?’’ But Martin could hardly be regarded as normal. Finally, he turned to Alan and stared at him:  
“I suppose…” he said suddenly, non-aggressively and non-impudently at all, but it felt he was strangely assured, “I…don`t have any right to ask for forgiveness.”  
  Now, that was interesting!  
“I could tell you I didn`t want it or I was drunk or I don`t have a clue how the hell it all happened, but that would be lie,” Martin continued in a pathologically calm tone. “I suppose you know that I was aware of what I was doing. It doesn`t mean I am proud of what I did - please don`t think I am.”  
  For God`s sake, Martin`s pathological truth-telling seizures were even worse than lies-telling ones. It was the first time in his life Alan would prefer to know nothing. Well, he definitely would prefer some sloppy lachrymose repentance and a couple of false promises. When Alan managed to unclench his teeth, he asked:  
“So, what am I supposed to do from now on?”  
  Martin shrugged.  
  Alan hated to behave like a female lover, but he didn`t know what else he could do.  
“He doesn`t love you.”  
“I know,” Martin seemed to be unimpressed by Alan`s speculation.  
“And not because he doesn’t love you - hell, he doesn`t love anyone but himself. Probably I don`t know you well  after we`ve been sleeping together for half a year, but you are everything except a fucking altruist! Though, Satan himself broke his teeth over you…“  
“You see, Al, it is not always our right to decide.”  
“Nonsense! I can choose my own destiny as long as I am of sound mind and memory; leastways, I can consciously decide whom to shag and why!”  
“True for you,” Martin said. “But it`s not exactly like that. It`s not everything you can choose…and decide…not everything. It just happens…because it had to happen. I know what I did, but it wasn`t a thing I was allowed to choose.”  
“Martin, it was the most awkward evasion I`ve ever heard.  Couldn`t you take a trouble to make up a suitable excuse?”   
“What for?” Martin asked.  
“For the sake of our relationship. Of respect for it. If they are worth it. If they were worth it.”  
  Martin`s eyes were glistening with tears; he bowed his head. Tell something, you, fucking cunt! Alan felt he could hardly control himself as well. He didn`t know what he wanted to do most: to cry like a baby or to hit Martin in the face again - both sounded rather shitty.  
“Come on,” he hissed through the clenched teeth, “I am sorry. I was wrong. I beg your pardon for slapping your face; it was against the rules. So, come on, just do the same to me - and let us part friends. Show your respect for me at least!”  
“Alright”, Martin nodded.  
  Alan closed his eyes automatically, just in case. So he missed the moment Martin stood on tiptoes, cupped Alan`s face in his hands, and kissed his lips tenderly. Alan had never been shocked by a kiss so much in his entire life. The slightest touch pierced him like the electricity through a bare wire; it silenced him, blinded him, making him feel nothing but acute pain from his lips to the tips of his toes. He almost yelled with the pain from that touch, but a second later it was replaced with delightful languor, and he couldn`t open his mouth. He was unable to withdraw his lips from Martin`s and missed the moment when he started answering the kiss. It was wrong and pedagogically incorrect. It was the fucking taste of their kiss that got him hooked like a drug. The very thought of it made Alan hard. It was all the fucking scent of the skin, subtle but reminding of what made him come almost every night.  
  Alan grasped the back of Martin`s head, gliding his fingers through his curly hair. He knew that it gave a kick to Martin, and he wanted Martin to get high every time he was near him. Alan wanted Martin to depend on him. To depend on his attention, on his mood, on his caresses. The very thought of it turned him on. The fact that Martin was dependent of the sexual relationship with him was a turn-on. It was a rope he could pull if he needed to.  
An invisible rope, longer than the room, it got him hard faster than the tenderest love expression. It was his power and his control.  
  So, well, maybe...what if…screw Dave. What the heck could he do to take Martin away from Alan - what he hadn`t done yet? Would it dawn on him that Martin could be handled using sex? It would never cross Dave`s mind. What`s the use of denying himself good regular sex for the moral code? As an old saying advised, he would throw Martin out of his bed only to fuck him on the floor.  
  Martin pulled Alan at heartstrings by slowly getting down on his knees before him. He said nothing - just got down on his knees and hugged his waist. It was so moving that Alan forgave him. Well, actually, Alan would stay like this all day if he wasn`t aware that in this position something was sticking into the jaw of kneeled Martin. But he was becoming more and more aware of it.

***

  Sitting in Miller`s new office, in Mute, twenty years after that remarkable event, Alan was recalling that Judas` kiss. He took off his jacked and threw it on that good old leather couch where Fletch caught them that day - half-naked in the act of insane kissing. They were licking each other ecstatically, with Fletch`s folder somewhere under Martin`s butt. Actually, they had no intention of having sex in Miller`s office, but they just couldn`t stop.  
  Alan hadn`t known before that Andy could swear so arty-crafty. The main idea of his monologue was, “I will fucking never…ever…fucking cover you no more, Alan. You came to talk to Martin, cause you needed to, you fucking son of a bitch! Aw, you my talkative…my communi-fucking-cable lads!” Well, Andy put it in unspeakably more beautiful way. Alan couldn`t translate everything that he was saying about him and Martin. Martin was giggling as mad - he definitely found it really funny. Alan would be offended if he wasn`t charmed by Andy`s lexicon so much.  
  Alan looked at the security cam in Miller`s office and laughed out. He`d never been so happy the technology was lame in the eighties. He tried to imagine Miller`s rapture if he`d known the history of his old leather couch. It made him laugh even harder.  
  Miller didn`t understand his funny mood indeed.  
“Listen, Daniel,” suddenly said Alan, “I recall Martin telling me once - I don`t quite get it, but still - that we don`t always have a choice. I didn`t believe him then; I had my personal reasons not to. But now I am coming to think that he was probably right.”  
“What do you mean?” Dan asked carefully, looking at Alan through his glasses.  
  Alan drank his whiskey to the bottom in one gulp, giggled, and looked at his producer:  
“Do you know the truth, Dan?”  
“Do I?”  
“The truth is: I will do anything he asks me to.”  
  Miller`s face turned to stone - it was his authentic working look. It was the moment from where Alan`s moral hesitaion cared him no more.  
“So, it means the deal, Alan?”  
“So, it means the deal, Dan.”

***

  Creativity and sex.  
  Everything was built on those two things. That was what kept them together. Alan just couldn`t comprehend where the first thing ended and the other started. Everything that Martin did gripped him from inside, even though Alan never told him. Martin`s each word could cut him to the quick. Each note. Alan knew that Dave was sure it was all about him. Alan just knew that it was not that simple. He found Martin`s candour excessive, but it turned him on. He had sex with it. All the free time Alan had he painted an image of the ideal love - of their ideal love. It started simply as a research of some new images and sounds, from their striving for the unique style and sound of the band. And if Alan, fuck him sideways, ever knew when it all became the mesmerizing research of Martin`s sexuality and the dreamily realization of his own erotic fantasies about their love.  
  Alan knew that the picture of love painted by him was spellbinding for Martin. Better than the others, he knew that Martin was not interested in anything but music and erotomania, which in its acute exacerbation led to the most desperate and unsatisfied thirst for love. Albeit, the total atrophy of understanding the social code and stereotypes had complicated his task to start a new relationship. It was a good thing because otherwise Martin wouldn`t show up at the studio at all. Alan suspected that if they hadn`t been so interested in each other from the creativity point, they would hardly bear each other for more than half a year. However, he felt in love with the love he`d painted. And he made Martin fall in love with it, too. It was the most he could do for them.  
  But first he crossed Martin up a little, actually.  
  It was his little revenge on Martin for cheating him with Dave. He had his right to it as both of them agreed on the rules of the game. After their licking foreplay, Martin was in a state to agree on anything he would be proposed, and Alan perfectly knew that. He proposed him to “play”. As a rule, it meant something better than just sex.  
  Martin`s stare told Alan that he was ready to give him everything in the most obscene way in the nearest backstreet. Martin`s eyes were flashing killing light at Alan. Like emeralds rounded with diamonds in the sunlight.  His body and face were showing only one thought, “I want you now”. Well, this thought could be read on his face almost each time Alan looked at him, but now it was particularly obscene.  
  In his turn, Alan did all he could and even more. He did it wholeheartedly. He had never wanted to prove his power over this body so much. He made Martin struggle under him, almost made him strain his voice under him. He felt the scent of the rapture, leaning down to place love bites, and left more marks on his body. This scent was the scent of the skin and adrenaline. It was a non-comradely way of thinking, but he could never ever dream of a better whore than he had at the moment.  
  He made Martin go down on his knees and fucked his mouth in the roughest way he ever did. He handcuffed him, leaving the lad`s hands behind his back, making him even more defenseless. Martin was kneeling, naked, and Alan was fucking his mouth, clenching his fingers in Martin`s hair. He liked that despite Martin had choked on his cock probably five times in a row, he never tried to defend his life from the obvious danger; Martin played his role perfectly. It was arousing as fucking hell, almost as much as the thought of Dave seeing the result of his imaginary victory.  
  For about fifteen minutes Alan observed, mesmerized, his dick hiding inside of his lover`s mouth. He pulled it out only to slap Martin`s swelled lower lip slowly and lasciviously - the lad`s mouth was opened obligingly to please his Master`s needs. He pulled it out only to see Martin`s tongue licking his dickhead, moving around and then straight to the middle dip, then gliding his cheek over his cock. To move his weapon inside again until hearing a subtle moan and the attempts to break free from his firm grip. Still, Alan was sure Martin liked what he did to him. Otherwise he himself wouldn`t do it THAT good. Alan never knew how good Martin was with women in bed, but he could bet the health of all his relatives that the motherfucker operated cocks too good!  
  He turned Martin face-up in his bed, unceremoniously shoving his middle and ring fingers into his mouth, making Martin treat them as his dick, softly but rhythmically shoving them in and out. Then Alan licked his chest and neck; he knew it turned Martin on. He replaced his tongue with his fingers and pinched Martin`s nipple relentlessly, making him clench his teeth on Alan`s hand. For that Martin was punished with a fearless slap on his face. It was allowed at that state of his excitement.  
“You are my slut,” Alan could not suppress such a happy announcement, touching Martin`s lips with his own, marking his right of the ownership.  
  He went down, torturing Martin`s nipples longingly. His lips followed his tongue, then his fingers, and then the lips again. The only thing Alan didn`t touch was Martin`s cock. Not for the reason he wasn`t eager to feel that velvet hardness inside his mouth, but because he enjoyed the feeling of the desperate need of Martin`s body - the body that had already comprehended it would not unload in the traditional way. Alan was ready to do everything to hold Martin in that state as long as possible. He wanted him more and more every minute; he was unable to hide or control it. Alan was happy he had handcuffed him; otherwise, the fun would be already over: Martin just wouldn`t have had so much willpower.  
  Alan was overexcited too, but the desire to wear Martin down held him within limits. He desperately needed to make marks on him, to make Martin grovel to him; he wanted him to beg, to kiss his boots pleading to fuck him hard. For that, Alan was ready to experience a couple of tortures of the Holy Inquisition, not to mention seeing Martin`s hard cock weeping with desire. He sucked hard on Martin`s nipple like a vampire, barely covering his teeth from touching the aroused flesh.  
  He realized that his actions weren`t pleasurable; well, they were outside the range of pleasure. Another pair of shoes was that Martin was probably unable to distinguish between pain and pleasure under the endorphins he had by that time. He was shouting nonsense, asking Alan to stop or do something – he didn`t know already.  
  Needs to be said, it was harder and harder for Alan to control the situation as his own flesh reminded insistently that he could end up before having started. Alan lifted Martin`s spread legs in the air and, using Martin`s excitement, entered him to the balls in one fluid movement, his moan covering Martin`s. Yeah, it was hard for Martin to accept him completely, but he couldn`t push Alan away because he was handcuffed behind his back. Large drops of cold sweat and Martin`s squeezed eyes were all Alan could see, but, hell, it was so arousing that he decided not to stop. He felt the body underneath relaxing with each move, but the fucking distress and Martin`s grimace of pain were too turning-on to get away satisfied with some inner massage this time.  
  He didn`t know how he got that exciting idea. It must`ve been a short circuit in his brain. He just wanted to feel it. Alan grabbed Martin`s neck, without stopping his insistent movements in and out, and pressed his thumb and the pointing finger on the lad`s carotid artery, reducing the oxygen inflow to his brain. Hell, it was pleasurable from, oh, so many points. He felt Martin`s fear and inability to control him; Martin`s body contracted on him spasmodically again. Alan took away his hand; Martin said nothing - if only he was still conscious. Alan checked it up by slapping Martin`s face. Martin told him to fuck off; that was the best way to confirm he was alright. Alan leaned yet closer, kissing him gratefully on his mouth but fucking faster and harder.  
  He wanted to control the things that couldn`t be controlled. He continued kissing Martin, holding his knee on his shoulder with one hand and pressing on his neck with the other - much softer than the first time but nevertheless making the images shift quickly before Martin`s eyes. He didn`t know if Martin could hear his desperate groan -  
“You are mine, you belong to me” - because Martin`s eyes were unfocused.  
  He knew he should stop because he couldn`t control himself any more.  
“Come on,” Martin moaned from the fucking knot of their naked bodies, “finish what you`ve started! Will you make me come today?”  
“I will!” Alan roared, rolling off Martin and turning him face-down to make it easier.  
  He unclasped the handcuffs, which was accompanied by Martin`s moans as his hands were obviously numb. Then he took Martin`s wrists up to fasten them to the headboard. He was as crazy as a sack full of ferrets, but he noticed the bruises the handcuffs left on Martin`s tender skin.  
“I will when I decide it’s time!”  
  Without further ado, it should be mentioned, Alan did make Martin come. By the very enthusiastic punching of his overexcited cock into his butt, shoving his fingers into his mouth again, and making him come without any help of his hands - just because he was fucking his ass. Well, it doesn`t matter that the skin on Alan`s fingers was grazed in the end; actually, it was even honest.  
  Is it needed to be said that when he discovered that Martin and Dave had a fight the next day, he was in pure ecstasy? Dave could be a retard most of the time, but he was not a fool at the point of love bites and bruises on Martin`s wrists.  
  Andy parted them to their corners like two cats, and he understood everything as well. Maybe even more than he should have. It was the first time in his life Alan saw that much hate addressed to him in somebody`s eyes.  
  No problem, we will survive.  
  When Dave realized that his favourite toy had been taken away, he became a drama queen. He turned the studio upside down swearing like a devil, went to the corridor and phoned Miller to explain deliberately loudly that he had to leave the Depeche Mode now! The target of that impact was a curly blond in the corner, who was like a stone and could hardly understand what had happened, but shuddered every time he caught the meaning of Dave`s words. Alan suddenly realized in terror that Dave had a string to pull Martin when necessary, and one could hardly predict who would win in the end.  
“Depeche Mode will never exist without Dave,” Martin announced in his most pathologically calm voice the same evening.  
  They were on their way to Alan`s place, and Alan advised him, in a fit of anger, to send Dave to hell or further and put an end to his bloody hysterics that started to enter their lives more and more deeply.   
“Depeche Mode will never exist without you,” he answered to Martin.  
“I don`t feel I have the right to decide that kind of things,” Martin said, “and I…I hope…despite everything, we will find a way to move on…”  
“Yeah, that is exactly what I fear most,” Alan said. “That _we_ will find the way.”  
  He emphasized the word “we”, meaning he had no doubt Martin would find a way to convince Dave. He even knew which way he would choose. That damn Depeche Mode with its weirdness infected everyone who ever touched it. Even Alan, who had never doubted his own rationality, became suspicious that some unknown force was pushing him to do things he never thought were right. Alan got entangled in his own actions like in the Hampton Court maze and totally lost his way out.  
“It goes to show,“ Alan said laughing, “every time Dave decides to get something from Martin, all he needs to do is intimidate him by the threat of his leaving the band. And Martin will give him everything.”  
  Alan intended to sting Martin by his straightforwardness. But, as always, it worked out wrong.  
“You comprehend me overmuch,” Martin said in his metallic tone. “I don`t like the look of it.”  
  That was sort of a too ambiguous compliment - even to Alan`s taste.


	7. Chapter 7

_I want to remember when my nightmares were clearer._

“I love you, Dave,” Alan stated. “That`s my boy, Dave! Well done, old boy! You clever cookie! Dave, I guess I adore you!”  
Dave was startled like hell, especially when Alan kissed him with all his heart, slavering both his cheeks. Right in the middle of the street where they met on their way to the studio.  
“Does Martin know already?” Alan`s eyes were indecently shining with felicity.  
“Nope,” Dave frowned instantly. “Don`t know how to tell him…”  
“Oh, come on, you`ve already done everything,” Alan patted his shoulder. “It is as easy as pie to tell about it now.”  
“Tell?!” Dave was terrified. “To tell Martin?! As easy as pie?!”  
Alan started to laugh like a drain. Dave is such a Dave.  
“Oh, my God, I am going crazy,” Dave said. “What if he gives me a punch in the eye?”  
“I`ll ask him to be careful with your face. You are a frontman, and you kind of work with it!»  
«Aw, thank you, Alan.” Alan didn`t get if it was a sarcasm or not because Dave`s face was very complicated. “Al, what if…what if it will be you who tells him?”  
“That you are marrying? Oh, Dave, of course you will always have my strict “no” for that. Just because I`d rather see it from the outside,” Alan grinned. “Honestly, I`d even sell a pair of tickets to this show!”  
“Asshole,” Dave murmured. “All you can do is make fun of your mate… Lend me a cigarette.”  
“You`re old enough to have your own,” Alan retorted, making Dave wince - as each time when he borrowed a cigarette and Alan gave him a gentle reminder to leave the disastrous addiction. Of borrowing cigarettes. Although Alan held out the open pack. “Or it costs all your wedding budget?»   
  Alan intended to mock at Dave, but Dave just nodded sorrowfully:  
“Money is extremely scarce now. I hope Miller pays us before we go to Berlin; I have no idea how I`m going to live there.”  
  Alan decided not to ask what the hurry was for Dave to marry his playmate two days before leaving for Berlin to Hansa Studio. They should finish their album there, as was Daniel`s accountant`s idea. Well, it was Hansa`s accountant who wished to work for Daniel, actually, but it didn`t matter. Daniel was pretty sure that the new impressions would shake them all in a good way. From all those previous Dave vs. Martin hysterics he made a conclusion that the two warhorses had become restive and got frenzied from boredom and inability to use their folly to run riot. So, he decided that a new place to live, a new country, new impressions of Berlin would definitely help them to sublimate their foolishness into some socially useful activity.   
   No, Alan wouldn`t ask Dave why he couldn`t do that after the return from Berlin. He knew the reason better than the others. Dear God! He suspected that Dave would make this stunt, but he was surprised how soon and how easy he had made it. Alan expected Dave to try to make Martin come back to him, even in his awkwardly absurd manner, so he prepared himself for a long and exhausting struggle. But it was Dave: all or nothing! What, Martin is cheating on me? I`ll go and marry someone to annoy him! Get this clear! And let it be my lost! Ha-ha-ha! Well, actually Alan started feeling sorry; he didn`t expect Dave to lose so soon. What a pity! He was a nice adversary. Well, leastways, they could probably be friends now.  
“Ah, come on, let`s move already!”  
“Let`s go inside then, prom trotter.”  
    Alan gave him a head start for five minutes, hanging his jacket and making tea.   
   Without any erotic prelude and foreplay Dave stated everything right from the doorway. He decided that if he didn`t do it now, he would rather go to Joanne to tell her that he’d changed his mind than tell Martin he was marrying. It didn`t matter that he hadn`t slept for a week; it didn`t matter that he had chewed off the fucking corner of his pillow not to cry like a girl. It didn`t matter that he felt betrayed and hated Martin more than ever. It didn`t matter that he had decided never to depend on the guy and never to sell his soul for his glance. It didn`t matter that he had made up his mind to prove himself worth something to Mart, and he wouldn`t die without him.  
   Dave entered the room and saw Martin half-lying on the couch pillows with a cold cup of coffee that he was clutching with both hands like a little baby and staring bluntly at the wall, past Fletch, who was sitting near and reading a newspaper. Martin seemed to be absent from this dimension. Instantly, Dave`s resentment towards Martin started to look very insignificant. Especially now, in the studio warmth, when Martin was here, sleepy and so down-home, half-dressed and so his own one. Well, he`d made out with his ex, by force of habit – so what? We are all made from flesh and blood, so…shit happens! After all, they were both men, so…nothing to talk about. But Alan was menacingly rumbling with teacups downstairs, and Dave realized that he would look like a coward in Wilder`s eyes; and, well, if Martin cheated on him with some chick, that`d be ok but…with the friend of theirs! With Alan fucking Wilder! What a sacrilege and an outrage upon their friendship! So, Dave pushed this thought away with the unreal willpower of his. Alan was making his way up the stairs when Dave spitted out quickly in a fake joyful manner:  
“Me and Joanne, we`re gonna marry this Sunday!”  
   Martin didn`t move a muscle. He kept looking through Fletch as he was before, like nothing had happened.  
“Such a good egg, Dave! OUR congratulations!” Fletch said without looking up.  
  At that exact moment grinning Alan entered the room, holding a porcelain cup of steaming tea on a tea plate.   
“Good morning! The weather is just as perfect as the morning today, gentlemen,” he said as if he didn`t have a clue what was going on here. “The sodding rain is as cold as ice, and London will probably not see the sun earlier than next spring, and the day has been a buggery from the start. So, everything`s as always. Fine.”  
“Good morning, dear Alan,” Fletch said, “the sun of ours. If it wasn`t for you, this day would be such a waste!”  
   Martin shrugged and stared at Alan`s cup. It seemed that the movement attracted his attention.  
“Martin,” Dave hissed through his teeth, “MARTIN!”  
Martin tore his eyes off Alan`s cup with a visible effort and moved his stare to Dave`s eyes without blinking.   
“Martin?”  
Martin was just staring. Fucking hell, why no matter how right he was he looked like an idiot, Dave thought.  
“I invite you. Both.” Dave was drilling Martin with his eyes, searching for any kind of reaction.  
“We will surely come, Dave,” Fletch said, “right, Mart?”  
    Martin desperately yawned, hiding the yawn with his hand. Dave was expecting anything but such a cruel and  demonstrative I-don`t-give-a-fuck attitude from Martin. Well, Martin was a master of I Don`t Give a Fuck Attitude, but that day he outdid himself! Dave bumped the wall with his fist; fuck, he could barely hold himself from jumping on Martin to shake or beat the shit out of him, no matter what. How dared he be so laid-back, as if Dave`s personal life interested him no better than the one of a garden caterpillar!    
     Alan sat down into his armchair, putting his cup on the table and hiding his face with his palm, looking askance at the acting area. He was the second person in this room, probably, who was very interested in how Martin would play his part. Though, seeing Dave becoming irritated more and more and Martin`s imperturbable face, Alan was giggling to himself. He was right - it was a true show!   
“Has she caught a baby?” Fletch asked, because he suspected that something was wrong there and tried to defuse tension - well, as he could.  
“No!” Dave cut off.  
“Why all of a sudden then?” Fletch asked.  
“It`s none of your business!” Dave was unexpectedly aggressive.   
Martin placed his cup on the coffee table, stood up stretching, then rubbed his jaw and headed for the door.  
“I wish but I can`t go,” he said abruptly, passing Dave. The three lads gave a start as they didn`t hope to hear Martin`s voice that day already. “My doggy needs a vaccination.”  
“Excuse me, WHAT? You can`t go to my wedding because your fucking doggy needs a fucking vaccination?!” Dave repeated slowly. Alan laughed up his sleeve. Fletch was looking with reproach, though it was not clear at whom.  
   Martin deigned to reply. As always, he felt idiosyncratic to explain his actions or to defend himself. He clutched the door knob.  
“Don’t-cha need to shave your cac-tus?” Dave was spitting bile.  
“I will shave my everything without your advice, Dave,” Martin retorted quickly, shutting the door behind his back.  
    Alan moaned with muffled rapture. Dave grabbed his cup and threw it with all his heart at the shut door, spilling tea all around and scattering the bits of porcelain all over the floor. Alan wanted to applaud, but his natural prudence reminded him that the tea plate was still on the table.  
“That was my tea, Dave,” Alan tactfully specified.   
“WHAT FUCKING TEA?!” as tactful – well, as he always did - Dave asked.  
“My fucking tea,” Alan repeated calmly. “Why did you throw my tea at the door, Dave? I haven`t made it to be fucked up. I`ve made it to drink. If I knew it was so necessary for you to throw some porcelain at the door, I`d make a tea for you too. Excuse me for my ignorance.”  
“Ah, fuck. Sorry, Alan, sorry, old boy,” Dave seemed to have come to himself suddenly. “Fletch, don`t look at me that way!”  
Fletch even took his glasses off. His face showed that he was eager to kill Dave.  
“Okay, alright, I will put it up and clean everything up now!” Dave hurriedly grabbed a doorknob.  
“FREEZE!” Andy roared in a thundering bass.  
  Alan realized that it made sense because down there Martin was walking freely; therefore, they couldn`t let Dave out without a muzzle. Dave flinched and stopped.  
“Go and sit with me, now!” Andy said in a metallic voice.  
Dave took Martin`s place near Andy obediently, hugged the pillow which Martin was leaning against before, breathed in, and howled pitifully, exhaling.  
   Andy went downstairs to take a mop and a scoop to remove the disaster from the floor.  
“Do you think I`ve done everything right?” Dave asked in the unhappiest voice.  
“Perfect. From my point of view, you were perfect,” Alan announced honestly. From his point of view, Dave couldn`t have done it any better. Was Dave seriously relying on him for that? “Thank you for everything you`ve done, Dave.”  
“Wait, what do you mean _thank you_?” Dave`s face expressed a sheer surprise, but then he immediately frowned. “Shit,” he said.  
      The moment of triumph changed into the total failure.

  ***

The day Х had come.  
They were to leave for Berlin.  
Accidentally, Andy had missed Dave`s marriage as well. They had got blindly drunk, all of them three, right before the flight, afraid that there would be no pubs in West Germany. Alan didn`t remember clearly how they got onto the plane, actually. He kept only one thought - not to forget his luggage, as well as Martin`s. Well, he hoped that Martin could care of it by himself.  
“Hey, you, beloved mine, are you fucking aware where your bloody bag is and that you should go somewhere? Can you goddamn watch your own stuff?!”  
“Fu-ucking cu-unt, I do-on`t give ah…shit!” Marin laughed out loud joyfully in answer; the thirteenth pint of beer was definitely excessive.   
“Clear enough.”  
  Alan understood that he would have to deliver the body to Heathrow, and stopped asking Martin useless questions. The next thing he remembered was that he started to laugh like a madman at the airport when he saw sweaty Andy with tousled hair and his glasses crooked on his nose, who was pushing a cart, all doom and gloom, with his suitcase and Martin sleeping atop of it.  
   Andy`s face was desperate; the boarding on their flight was almost over. Alan forgot where he had lost the lads - they had been together, and then the two disappeared. Alan started to feel nervous, but they appeared again. Well, Andy appeared, pushing the cart with Martin.  
“Where have you been hanging around, you bastards?” Alan said thickly.  
“All is lost!” Andy whispered loudly.  
“What, Fletch?”  
“Everything!” Andy said, terrified. “We are flying nowhere!”  
“Are you insane, Fletch?”  
“We are fucked up!”  
“Fletch?!”  
“Passport!” Fletch said. “We, Martin and I, can`t find his passport!”  
Alan looked at Martin, who was sleeping like a baby, and expressed his doubts about Martin`s desire to help Fletch in his search for the passport. He actually expressed his doubts that Martin altogether gave a fuck where his passport was.  
“Holy shit, what are we gonna do now? Miller will kill him!” Fletch started to wail. “We can`t get him aboard without the passport! Miller will beat us into a matzo!”  
“He will. Both of you – honestly, you are worth it.” Alan giggled and pulled both passports out of his pocket. “But as you have me, we will take a ride…in this plane I mean…he-he-he.”  
“Why do you have Martin`s passport?” Fletch looked at him wide-eyed; he definitely wanted to ask why Martin`s personal stuff was kept by Alan, but at that moment their names were called over the airport loudspeaker because they were the missing passengers.  
“Oh, hell, we should hurry up now!” Fletch yelled. “Is there a way on earth we can make him stand upright?!” he meant Martin.   
“Check him as the luggage!” Alan said gloomily. But when Fletch understood him literally and started to push the cart away, he shouted:  
“Oh, Fletch, for fuck`s sake! No! Just lift him somehow! Use me as a support to its…I mean, his vertical position while you`re checking our luggage! And hurry up, please!”   
   Just married Dave must have had a litter of kittens in the plane already about their absence. He was mad as a bear with a sore head. Firstly, for their ignoring the main event in his life so far. Well, Alan wanted to go, but by the time he recalled that he should go, they had all been too drunk, and Dave was probably sleeping like a log after the good workout on his wedding night. So, Alan decided not to go, Martin consistently didn`t give a fuck, and Andy did as Martin commanded.   
   This long and windy path to the plane Alan would never forget. He didn`t know that it could be so hard; he felt they had been walking for the whole hour. In sober fact, Martin wasn`t that heavy, not heavier than any girl, but Alan found it inappropriate and too risqué to carry the lad aboard in his arms; so, as he was leading him, Martin would fell down periodically. Finally they appeared before Dave`s black eyes burning indignantly - as they were, booze breathing: Andy with his crooked glasses (who broke them, Alan never understood clearly), and Alan himself, clutching Martin firmly at his waist as he was consistently drooping down.   
“What the fuck!?” their frontman was almost shrieking.  
In answer, Alan dropped Martin occasionally onto the lap of some old lady in a cherry coat and with Queen Elizabeth`s hairstyle. Martin opened his eyes, stared at the lady, and asked sheepishly:  
“Ex…excuse me…isn`t…it…too notice…notice…able…that I am drunk?”  
“Oh, no, don’t say that! Not at all! ” Alan and Fletch assured him, taking him away from the lady`s lap.   
“Excuse us, madam!”  
“For God`s sake, we are very sorry!”  
“Alrighty then!” Martin said happily and fell down again, this time right between the rows of the seats.  
    Alan took his seat, after having thrown, with the help of Fletch, their mate`s body onto the aisle seat on the second try, and was ready to give a prayer of thanks to God, although his parents had done a lot in his youth to take a wind off his sails to do that ever again.  
    For Dave the final stroke of their departure from London was a cynically naturalistic picture: Alan sitting with his eyes shut, and…Martin curled up on the guy`s lap as trustfully as atop of Fletch`s suitcase before. Dave understood that if he didn`t buzz up like them, he wouldn`t reach his destination alive because he would explode with hate. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!!!

***  
Alan found a nice little apartment near the studio. He had to confess it wasn`t that bad. Everything wasn`t that bad. It worked out as good as it could. They spent a day and a night in bed with Martin. No, they did nothing, just slept, lolled, watched TV, and bitched up enthusiastically for several hours about the music channels and the shit they were showing. Then they went to a grocery shop. Then drank some beer right from the bottles, thoughtfully staring at Berlin`s sunset, and lazily chatted about the work and the clubs and David Bowie. Then they went to sleep again. It felt like an old routine, and strangely it was something Alan liked most. It was hard to explain why, but it was so peaceful.  
    In the morning Dave came to see him.  
“Zombie smells coffee,” said Dave, sniffing, instead of “hello”.  
“Good morning, Dave.”  
“Hello, Al. I`ve come here to tell you that it is a perfect morning today!”  
“So sweet of you, Dave.”  
“I just woke up and remembered that I live on the other side of the street from you!»  
“I do love you too, Dave,” Alan was still standing, inhospitably holding the door not to let Dave in. Dave was jigging up and down impatiently, evidently waiting to be invited, but Alan kept delaying.  
“I`ve run out of coffee!” Dave confided.  
“My condolences,” Alan said.  
“All restaurants are closed. Too early. And all the shops too. C`mon, let me in…”   
  Alan tried to protest:  
“Listen, Dave, don`t get me wrong, I am glad to see you. Please don`t think that I…well, but I am not sure that it is a good idea to…”  
“Listen, why are you so greedy for your coffee?”  
“I am not. Not at all,” Alan said. “It`s just I am undressed.”  
Dave stared in surprise at Alan wearing pyjama pants and a black bath robe. From his point of view, he was overdressed.  
“Okay, I won`t look at you, my lord! Go and put on your scarf or your buttonhole, your night cap or your night vase…or whatever your morning tuxedo is missing. Just tell me where the coffeemaker is,” Dave pushed Alan away from the door, invading his territory shamelessly. “Is the kitchen that way?”  
    Dave joyfully headed to Alan`s bedroom.   
“THE OTHER WAY!” Alan said through the clenched teeth.  
He rubbed his face with both hands, looking at himself doomy in the mirror on the wall, watching Dave buoyantly galloping back to the kitchen.  
“Co-f-fee-co-f-fee-co-f-fee-co-f-fee. If I don`t drink coffee in the morning, I am dead!” Dave shouted merrily from the kitchen. “A silent, withered, and inactive dead body!”  
“You don`t say!”  
“I guarantee! I can`t live without coffee at all! Good thing that I have my best buddy Alan Wilder who has coffee.”   
“The problem is that I am not alone,” Alan finally dared to say.  
“Never mind! It`s better to put up with it!” Dave said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Do you have cream?”  
“It`s better to put up with what exactly?” Alan asked warily.  
“Milk maybe?”  
“Choke on it!” Alan spitted in a fit of a temper, putting a milk jug near Dave.  
“Thank you, for you are so kind, Charlie,” Dave laughed, calling Alan by his second name like his relatives did.  
“Better to put up with what or whom, Davie?” Alan purposely called him by pet form, but Dave didn`t notice his sarcasm as always.  
“With your mates,” Dave sipped coffee soundly and exhaled in ecstasy. “I`m in Heaven!”  
   At that exact moment Martin came out of the bathroom. He was drying his hair with a big white towel. He was in his birthday suit. Alan stood with his back to the door, but he didn`t need to turn his head to know what had happened. Dave`s face told the complete story.   
“Oh, Dave, by what chance?” Martin`s voice was as calm and confident as if he was meeting the Queen in and was wearing a tuxedo.  
  Alan was watching him with a certain interest. Dave was watching him too. Silently. His face gave away all verbally inexpressible changes of his feelings. Very slowly Martin shook the towel well, then painfully slowly wrapped it around his thighs. Alan hardly held himself not to applaud this improvised striptease vice versa. If he wasn`t so sure that there would come a real punchfest, he would applaud indeed. A thought of a fight strangely combined inside his mind with the fact that Martin was naked, and he felt his face flushing. He got embarrassed.  
“Dave`s run…out…of….coffee,” Alan managed to say.  
“Aw, run out of coffee, then,” Martin repeated the way it sounded like a slap on the face. Dave jerked as if he was in pain.  
“What have _you_ run out of, Mart?” he reacted finally. “Water?”  
“Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh,” Martin replied tauntingly, “very funny, Dave. Made the joke by yourself?”   
   Alan had never noticed that Martin could experience such a sweet intoxication from performing the acts of sadism on his buddies. He was staring at the lad in a complete shock, freezed, with a coffee-pot in one hand and a cup in the other. Martin entered the kitchen slowly and sat down. His face was radiating the most perverted joy and self-satisfaction. It appeared that Dave was also rather shocked, because he fell silent as a stone, which was very unnatural for him.  
“You`ve told you will live here with your friend Christine?” Dave whimpered slightly.  
  Martin exhaled, moving his body a little bit lower on his chair and spreading his legs wider, letting the towel form a deep cut on his left thigh, so his skin could be more visible to Alan and Dave.  
“Fucker!” Alan muttered, spilling steamy hot coffee on his hand; he almost dropped the cup.  
   Martin`s behavior, the way he moved his ass forwards on the chair, was so ambiguous that he started blushing like a virgin, even if he was sure they did nothing like that yesterday and the night before yesterday. Alan only thanked God that he wasn`t in Dave`s place now.  
“Would you like some coffee, Mart?”  
“Will you give it to me?” Maestro was in royal spirits.  
“I will.” Alan couldn`t disagree with that.  
“Christine is out of town,” Martin answered impassively. Even Alan believed him, albeit yesterday he heard Martin talk to her by the phone and tell how he loved her, missed her, and that he hoped he would be in Berlin soon. Alan knew enough German to understand that. He didn`t tell Martin he understood, though.  
“Awwww,” Dave said, “and you are fucking Alan until she returns?”  
Alan put the cup near Martin with a hammering sound.  
“Until that, Dave, I am fucking Alan,” he admitted slowly and calmly.  
  Alan coughed nervously, hiding his face in his palms. Martin, you damn motherfucker!  
“Oh, fuck me sideways! I completely forgot.” Martin stretched his hand out for the milk jug. “I came here because I ran out of water. I am so sorry, gentlemen. Thank you for the coffee, mister Wilder, you are so unexpectedly kind today.”   
“It brings me a sheer pleasure to serve you, mister Gore,” Alan hissed. If Dave didn`t kill Martin today, he would do it himself anyway. He pushed his chair aside and sat near Martin.  
    Then Martin began to fuck around with the milk jug. He thoughtfully tried to drip some cream into his cup but failed and then looked inside. Shook it, raised it, and opened his mouth… Alan turned his face away from that; he had had enough for that day already. He was surprised that Dave swallowed all this. He`d already be gone if it was for him. But even with his eyes closed he smelt the fresh scent of Martin`s skin, and he was aware of the fact that Martin was naked too. The only thing he had in his mind was that they hadn`t fucked for two weeks. Hell, Dave, how soon will you understand that you`d better go, buddy? He hated the sound of it, but he became desperate for fuck. Dave drank his coffee in one gulp.  
     Martin giggled idiotically, lip-smacking obscenely, and licked his own finger. Alan didn`t need to see that of course Martin spilled some cream on his naked chest and now was wiping it off. Alan was seriously thinking what to do first: to fuck Martin and then kill, or in his case it would be much better to perform the second act first. Dave stopped breathing for a minute.  
“You are…such a…cunt, Martin!” Dave jumped up from his chair. The tears in his voice were so noticeable that Alan almost fell from his chair; Dave whimpered again, even if he tried to hide it.  
“Dave,” Alan stood up, trying to catch Gahan, while Martin was cynically laughing out loud at Dave`s breakdown, slapping his lap buoyantly. Even though he was the only one who got the humour in that situation, he forgave them.  
   Dave shut the door behind his back, escaping the damned apartment, and Alan gloomily locked it. Martin became bored sitting at the kitchen alone, so he came to the corridor to Alan. Alan turned around and opened his mouth to say something rude about what had just happened, but shut it down again.  
   The lad stood folding his arms and staring heavily. The glaze of humour disappeared from Martin`s features, and only the darkest melancholy, sorrow, and desperation remained. Martin stopped blinking again. His jaws, his hands tensed spasmodically; Alan changed his mind about saying some bad words to him ‘cause now it seemed too cruel.  
“Hey,” he said quietly and tenderly, “come here, little fellow, closer.”  
He touched Martin`s hand, making him cringe.   
“Hush, relax,” Alan grabbed Martin`s waist, hugging him closer. “Don`t push me back. These hands never made you feel bad. Never did you harm. They can only make you feel good - and no other way to use them.”  
   He gripped Martin`s head, pushing his face to his naked chest in the bathrobe cut. Martin was still folding his arms, and they were pressing to his navel. Martin did not resist but did not change his position either. Alan caressed his still a little wet nape slowly.   
“Ah, you are such a skull fucked…curly, who did that to you?”  
  Martin smirked right to his chest, unfolded his arms, and hugged Alan`s back. Alan called Martin on his nick name to make him relax, and it worked out right. He softened in his arms.   
      Alan felt he was happy again. He felt Martin`s breath with his bare skin and goosebumps of pure happiness it caused on his spine. He felt his temperature rising with each Martin`s exhale. Alan was holding Martin`s back with one hand, convulsively tousling the curls on his head with the other, pressing his face harder to himself.  
    He felt they were so close. They were together now. He knew it wouldn`t last longer than several minutes, but he desperately and childishly wished it could last forever. He could stoically suffer the cold metallic door knob grinding into his spine not to spoil the moment. At the exact moment he got absolutely limp and dumb from happiness, Martin lifted his head slowly to announce in an indescribable voice:  
“You`ve got a boner.”  
“Oh, no. How could it happen!” Motherfucker, how dare you spoil such a sacred moment. Ok, not really spoil, actually.   
  Alan grabbed Martin`s backside, pressing the lad`s hips into his firmly; Martin balked, pushing his palms against Alan`s chest, not seriously - there was a wide shining Disney-cartoon smile on his face.  
“Are you teasing me now?”  
The smile widened more, even if a second ago it seemed that nothing could be wider and it was impossible to shine more. Oh, you cheeky monkey, I will wipe this smile from your face in a second! Alan removed the towel from Martin`s hips, in one fluid movement slapping Martin`s round ass with his both palms. Nevermind how skinny Martin could be, his ass never lost its tempting roundness. He himself was very shy of this fact. Alan`s regrets about its roundness came from completely different reasons.   
    He grabbed that ass from below, squeezing it unceremoniously, and Martin`s resistance was over - he was just passionately clutching Alan`s shoulders with both hands. Lips found other lips, touching tenderly. Feeling the ignition start working out slowly inside their bodies, they weren`t hurrying at all, trying to enjoy the feeling of it to the bottom.   
  Alan glided his hand down Martin`s spine. Furthermore, he was excited by the fact that he was fully clothed and Martin was absolutely naked. He stopped breathing right after that thought reached his brain. The thought of Martin`s openness and defenselessness hit his groin like a truck. He suppressed his hoarse moan of that feeling again.   
“I want you,” this whisper right before his own lips wouldn`t let him rest much that day. If that wasn`t love, then love didn`t exist at all, because Alan had never been so overwhelmed as in moments like these. When the blood pressure in his ears was so high, he could hear the sound it was making rushing through his veins; he became someone else but not himself. He wasn`t manipulated by his brain any more, he would lose all self-control - it was a disgusting feeling, and he would sure feel sorry for it later, but his rapture to lose it was so obscenely high that he had no way out.   
     Alan turned Martin, so now the lad was standing with his back to the wall, and caressed the guy`s chest, navel and down there, grabbed his dick that was no less optimistic than Alan`s own, and it was a certain profit. With his manipulations he made Martin utter the happiest moan he was capable of. Of course, how could you not want me! Alan opened Martin`s mouth with his jaws, shoving his tongue inside, and right in time with it started to jerk off his cock in some moderate tempo. Half a minute - and Martin`s fingers were grinding into his flesh through the thick fabric of the bathrobe. He felt Martin couldn`t breathe, couldn`t control his own body any more because of too much different stimulations at a time, so he freed the guy, making his body slide down against the wall a little.  
   Alan held him right under his arms and kissed his sweaty forehead.  Such a grateful reaction from his lover`s body motivated him more than enough. Alan felt himself wired up. He thought he would satisfy his own needs later then, because that was the right time for the private show. Martin moved with his lips towards him and surely was not rejected by Alan`s slow tenderness.  
“Touch me,” burned down his ears. This sound was a pure rapture, pure velvet, and pure sex, but it also was a strict order. Alan had problems  learning to understand the nuances of Martin`s softness in the beginning; he almost had to pay for that some times by losing control of the situation in their educational role-playing games for the kids from age eighteen. It wasn`t too important in that exact case, but he got wise.   
“No,” Alan needed all his willpower to say that, because he was too willing to obey, “Martin, not like that.”  
   He pressed Martin`s hips to the wall again. He could do better. Alan kneeled before Martin abruptly; he was still caressing the lad`s naked thighs, while catching a tip of his cock with his cheek firstly and then gently pressing his lips around the very top. He could listen to the music of those moans forever. That was precisely his kind of show, because his one and only show-goer was so interested in it that it made it very exclusive. And Alan felt he was in control now. He was controlling Martin`s pleasure and Martin`s body.   
    He took his cock off his mouth, pressing him up with his hand to Martin`s navel, pointing at twelve o`clock, licking his way up from his balls to the top on the bottom side of the lad`s cock. Realizing that Martin was watching him with great interest and trying not to look so self-satisfied, Alan took his dick into his palm again and shoved the fat tool into his mouth as deep as he could. Not much, but he was heartedly trying, though. He was caressing Martin`s tummy while sucking his dick, wishing him to really like it. Well, of course Martin would enjoy it just because Alan was giving him his head, but Alan wanted it to be the ideal blowjob, so he was almost counting inside to make a perfect rhythm of his mouth`s movements. His palm felt Martin`s breath shorten and speed up, finding himself breathing in fumes, so he stopped for a second and leaned back.  
“More!” Martin said, and damn him, that was an order again. Alan was breathing heavily, looking him right into his eyes. “Alan, go back to you work. Now!”  
      Fucking hell! Alan thought he would be fucked up with that even more if he wasn`t so excited with the whole process himself. If his dick wasn`t pulsating in its hardness, and each Martin`s word wasn`t making him even harder, forcing the sweetest pain of the pleasure to flow through his body. He would never let Martin do this if he was more sober, but he fucking couldn`t think any more! He could see the body and the naked skin right before his eyes; planting his palms on the floor, Alan lowered his head to the level of Martin`s knee and kissed it so very slowly. Then he put his tongue out and slid up on the inner side of Martin`s thigh, stopping on his way on the most sensitive areas to bite slightly the willing tender flesh. Next day he would despise himself for lying at Martin`s feet like this and kissing his knees, but Martin`s cry of rapture was the biggest prize he would ever like to get.  
    Alan slid his lips on Martin`s other leg almost to the floor, making Martin spread his legs wider to give him a better acсess. And he gave Martin any caress he wanted, everything he had, because inside Alan there was nothing left but the animal desire to be closer to him. And he wanted to make Martin come. Alan knew it would be something that could turn him on even more now, and Martin would not object of course. Alan cupped Martin`s balls possessively, letting him know he should not relax too much, because he was aware of his rights to the most tender parts of Martin`s body. Shoved his dick deeper into his throat, with several intensive movements of his head making Martin arch and moan.  
“Come for me,” he squeezed the painfully erected cock with his hand again, moving it up and down, holding the pulsating head in his mouth, “I want you to come into my mouth!”  
  The first sperm shoot landed onto his cheek, making him catch the following with his mouth more precisely. It was so fucking hot; he kept sucking Martin`s cock, feeling the last spasms of orgasm fading. Now he knew for sure that this man belonged to him. Well, until tomorrow, at least.  
“To my bed. Now!” he commanded Martin, trying to stand up. “No fucking kidding!”  
Of course Martin started giggling, but he had had enough of the lad`s perverted sense of humour for that day!  
“I will fucking make you sorry for your laugh!” Alan tugged off his bathrobe gloomily.

 


	8. Chapter 8

_I want to be there when your hot black rage rips wide open._  
 _I want to taste my own kind._  
 _I want to be wrapped in cold wet sheets to see if it`s different on this side._  
 _I want you to come on strong._  
 _I want to leave you out in the cold._  
 _I want the exact same thing but different._  
 _I want some soft drugs...some soft, soft drugs._  
 _I want to throw you._  

The sun was shining bright, maliciously and impudently breaking through white metal strips of blinds in the studio, causing attacks of sickening migraine with its frightening cheerful optimism. Alan groaned with a strange cheek pain, and after a few seconds he realized that he had apparently fallen asleep on the toggle-switches during his work late at night yesterday, or rather early in the morning today.   
 “Crap! Charlie, it`s 2 o`clock already! The guests are coming!”     
 “Huh?.. Guests? What guests?” Alan asked. Well, he was asking jokingly. Rhetorically. He believed his spouse would understand his humour. Actually, he loved her mostly because she was able to understand his humour. His life experience had taught him that cohabiting with another person with no lethal threat to your own life is possible only by mutual sense of humour. That was the reason why he so fearlessly decided to cast his lot with her. Because she laughed at his jokes, and more of that, to her credit, she could guess the right places to laugh at.    
  She understood his humour. Usually. Obviously not this time. In response to his clumsy attempt to make amends for his own mistake, he heard that she was tired of being the only male in their house!  
  “Who`s banging whom in this house?!”    
  “Ha-ha-ha,” Alan was shocked by his own reaction. Good thing she didn`t understand his humour again. Well, in any case it was far better than what he was about to answer.  
  “Yesterday you swore you`d put up the tent aside of the pool!”  
  “Oh, good God... Hep, I had a lot of frigging work. I intended to do it...“ Honestly, he forgot about the sodding tent. Did he have to remember about all those freaking tents in the house like there were no other problems? “Actually, you could remind me again!”  
  “A lot of work!” Hep grabbed an empty bottle of vodka and a sticky glass of muddy mixture of melting ice and soda squeamishly. “You`re, seems to be, a work addict, aren`t you?” She picked up another bottle at the door. “Twelve hours in a row, raising your glass up and putting it down tirelessly...”  
  Guiltily Alan rubbed his bristly cheek with the reddish imprint of the toggle-switch where he had conked out yesterday.   
  “Can I have my tea, missus?” he said rather timidly, though.  
  “Water is in the tap, so you can help yourself, Sir!” Hep slammed the door shut.   
  Alan instantly felt relief when Hep was gone, as if she took away a thundercloud. Even the headache seemed gone. He breathed out a sigh of relief, because there were no casualties, and stood up. It was like Hep could feel it - the door opened again, and she sternly reminded:  
  “The tent.”  
  “I definitely need to shave and to take a shower...and... oh, I`m yearning for my fucking tea…”  
  “Now!”  
  “Yes, Boss.”  
  Alan stepped outside, blinking, shrinking and rushing away from the sun that burned his skin. He felt the same as at the best times of the Devotional tour when they had to leave hotels in mornings: like an unhappy vampire pursuited to be killed. The life nastily blazed on the lawn of fresh-cut grass and succulent green leaves. Fucking birds were chirping pathologically cheerfully, and light clouds were slowly drifting across the sky. Immediately Alan became ashamed of his unwashed head, stale shirt and unshaven face. He wanted to go back where it was cool and quiet, confident and calm, into his half-light with his booze. Inside of his half-light and with his booze, he felt at home, but here on this fucking fresh and clear air he felt like someone with his skin taken off and with his guts exposed.   
  He was a god in front of his musical equipment where he breathed soul and life into the ocean of sounds with the hand of the Creator. However, under the merciless sun, he was an unshaven boozehead and patresfamilias, long past his best - like everyone else.  
  The reality was disappointing.   
  He dissolved in the Universe that existed beyond time. It was created back then, ten years ago, but yesterday when he immersed in it, he felt it born and revived again under his touch. Martin was damn right, having honored Alan`s Holy Right to his universe and refused to let anyone but Alan in. Alan suddenly felt a sharp surge of infinite gratitude to Martin Gore for that. It seemed he started to recall something unbearably good and right in this person, despite his lovingly fostered resentment against him. Perhaps it was good that he had accepted his proposal... although first he feared that such intense scratching of his old wounds would definitely kill him.  
  The kids were scampering on the lawn near the pool, and Alan, lost in his reflections, did not notice that he almost approached his house.  
  “Paris! You can`t catch me!”  
  His son and daughter started to run around him after each other, like playing around a tree.   
  “Stanley! Give my shoe back, you lil` moron!!!”  
  On the fiftieth circle, Alan felt dizzy. He caught Stan, pulled the shoe off his hands and handed it to Paris, then gave Stanley a hearty slap upside the head and proudly entered the house, knowing he had fulfilled his paternal debt.  
  “The tent is done, isn`t it, Charlie?” He did not meet hospitality in his own house.  
  “Blimey!”  
  After two and a half hours, he finally assembled the bloody tent. Evidently, as it happens every time, some parts of the construction suddenly failed to suit each other, and some of them had been lost and then found between the jaws of a porcelain dog by the fireplace in the living room after some vicious half-hour scandal. Alan was swearing like a devil, and Stan was rolling with laughter on a fluffy ultramarine carpet. The joke seemed extremely funny to him. Alan forced his son to help him with the tent for pedagogical purposes, but the boy was not offended at all and even assembled his part rather quickly. Of course, Alan criticized shortcomings on that side, but Hep stroked her son`s head.    
 “I think I`m done with this tent! How long should I overrun myself? High time to buy a new one!” Alan said indignantly, heading for the shower.    
  “Well, then go and buy it,” Hep grumbled.   
  “I`m working!” Alan said and didn`t turn around.   
  “Over the last ten years, we assembled this tent more often than you worked,” Hep said vindictively, “despite the fact that we hardly assemble it once a year before your birthday!”  
  He slammed the bathroom door furiously, showing the only argument that would not let her find an answer!  
  “And don`t slam the door that hard, Charlie, you make the tiles fall off the bathroom`s walls!” Hep shouted back.  
   Guests warned that they would come up soon. Alan ruffled his hair and decided to go outside in order to artificially increase the sense of love for humanity taking the appetizer with his father-in-law, who had arrived early - or more precisely, to dull the pain of communication with representatives of the human race by using improvised means.  
At that moment, Hep came out of the bedroom, wearing an open dress with shoulder straps and radiating the fierce scent of aggressive powdered lavender.   
  “How do I look?” she asked, pouting her lips outlined with shiny deep-red lipstick. Hep was obviously flirting with him. “Am I sexy?”  
  “I believe you`d better wipe it off,” Alan grimaced.  
 “Alan, you`ve never been a ladies` man, but today you`ve outdone yourself!” Hep got offended.  
 “You might be aware I despise red lipstick in general.”  
 “It looks hella good on me!”  
 “Did I miss something? We`re having a brothel evening instead of a warm family party?”  
 “Oh, Charlie, how nice of you, dear…So, you do mean you`re jealous,” Hep laughed. “I wonder for whom? Maybe for Paul? Or maybe for my sister`s husband John? So, Mad Othello, tell me what you will do to me if I flirt with Paul?! Mmm?”  
  Hep was mocking him, but Alan was not in the mood to joke about it. She seemed to be flirting with him, and therefore he automatically, but rather because it was appropriate, playfully smacked her ass to soften the rudeness of his behaviour and his words.    
    “I would still want my wife look more decent, no matter what,” the words were very acrimonious and unflinching.

***  
  
  Oh, that lipstick of fucking red! How many nerves it wrecked him. This lipstick caused idiosyncrasy in him from those times when they lived together with Aint-Saint Martin in Berlin.  
  Back then, he didn`t like that Martin wore his make-up like a woman of pleasure. Not because he didn`t like make-up or those women but because Martin was a man, in his expert opinion. Alan tried to convey this idea to him, but Martin just laughed like crazy.  
“I despise gender stereotypes,” he replied.   
“I despise when everybody is looking at me and pointing fingers,” Alan said.  
“They`re not looking at you,” Martin replied as usual. “While I am happy with everything.”  
“Lord, give me the strength,” that was the end of his attempts to expostulate with Martin, in a best-case scenario. At worst, Martin ended up dressing even more provocatively. Soon Alan realized that even if he was very dissatisfied, it was better to keep silent in any case. So it turned out less painful for him.   
   In the Eastern edge of West Berlin, in Kreuzberg, where they lived and where all more or less self-respecting outcast kicked up heels, it was generally inappropriate to dress normally and not to stand out from the crowd. It was also improper not to have dark circles under the eyes in the daytime after a sleepless night spent at the club. It was as indecent as coming to work sober and without bottleache in the morning. It was as improper as not taking a couple of ecstasy, or as unreal as refusing to smoke the goofy-butt. That is why they went to the club every night. Martin did not fail attracting attention, even among the most prominent freaks and thugs of West Berlin. It took some time, though. But he tried very hard. He would always try very hard whatever he was doing. And he succeeded.    
   Alan was kneeling near Martin`s head; he was passionately fucking Martin`s mouth juicily coloured with the scarlet lipstick. Martin was lying across the bed almost naked except for...black ladies` stockings with elastic suspenders on his widely spread legs. Alan gasped and didn`t know what to look at - either at the sensitive skin of his own cock turning red by the second because of his arousal and the lad`s lipstick smudging all over it, or at Martin`s cock strained on his belly and trembling in accordance with each tight movement of his lips along the surface of Alan`s dick. On one side Martin`s cock was surrounded by the happy trail of blond hair, and on the other were those murderous old-fashioned black-laced ladies` stockings. It caused an absolutely blood-curdling explosion of contradictory emotions in Alan. On the one hand, he found it a completely disgusting and unnatural combination. It was ugly, effeminate, unaesthetic, and even seemingly not erotic; it was somewhere out of vulgarity. When Alan first saw it, he felt everything just squeeze in his pants. That was why he had to take them off immediately: he was scared the pressure of the clothes down from his waist would cause an asphyxia and the brain death due to the lack of oxygen. He was fucking Martin now, and he clenched his teeth and groaned in his desperate desire to keep the nuclear explosion from tearing him to pieces. It was burning out somewhere between his thighs, inside of his balls, though he gently cupped them in his palm, guiding his cock into the mouth beneath that was doing its job with great enthusiasm.  
   The more Alan endured and fucked Martin`s mouth, the more the idea to pay him back with interest took shape in his mind. All the more, the opportunity to have your cock sucked by Martin Gore lying between your legs in ladies` stockings is not an everyday option. God, he didn`t know whether to cry or laugh at his own thoughts, but for sure this idea mesmerized him as dangerously erotic.   
   It seemed the warm, gentle, affectionate embrace of Martin`s wet lips began to cause pain in his cock. Alan literally abruptly took it out of Martin`s mouth in an incredible effort of his will, whimpering of the inability to endure. He sadistically smudged the remnants of the red lipstick with his thumb over Martin`s cheek. He wanted to do this publicly every time he saw those impudently coloured lips, but he was afraid of something in Martin`s eyes, so he would never actually do it. Now he didn`t give a damn and did it - and almost came on those iridescent stains mixed with the rivulets of mascara, which showed the depth of the efforts Martin made to gratify him and the depth of the efforts Alan desperately made to shove his cock deeper into Martin`s throat. Alan threw his second knee back over Martin`s head. He crawled away from the lad`s mouth on his trembling hands, trying to recover a bit and to postpone the inexorably forthcoming ejaculation. He felt whacked-out and deadly drunk at the same time, although he hardly drank a couple pints of beer that day. His forehead was burning; his heart was throbbing painfully in his both temples, inside his chest and lower abdomen, sending more and more obscene fantasies to his mind and continually strengthening the tension that was tearing his brain apart. He just wanted to extend this crazy erotic intoxication as long as possible, but he barely could.   
  Martin tried to grab Alan`s thigh. Alan sobbed:  
  “Don`t touch me...just, please...Martin…don`t touch me…I mean...I`m not kidding... Don`t!”  
  Alan tried to imagine himself from the outside. Something like at his grandmother`s Christmas dinner together with his family dressed in evening gowns and watching him crawling in somewhat doggy-style position on his trembling hands and knees, wearing  a shirt only without any pants, with his desperately sticking-out shiny coral rock-hard cock. But even this image that usually brought terrifying cramp to his jaws was not enough to get rid of the understanding that he probably would cum now if Martin only looked at him.  
  “Are you all right?” Martin asked wonderingly, raising on his elbows.  
  Alan nodded slowly, thoughtfully looking at his throbbing cock, and suddenly giggled.  
  “Oriflamme*,” he said instantly with a French accent and giggled even more. “I feel like I am some sort of Tennessee Williams` protagonist...”  
  “Al, you`re out of your fucking mind or what?” Martin inquired friendly. He turned on the other side and was curiously watching the same thing as Alan, scratching his belly thoughtfully.  
  “Oh, the heroine…she, she…” Alan laughed, “was looking for a...perfect...you know... the perfect shade of red. Not carroty...not cherry... not brick colour...”  
  “You are completely buggered up, soulmate,” Martin stated wearily.  
  “No, you have to know this. The purest of scarlet...you know... the perfect red colour. The colour of the Oriflamme. So I...” Alan sat up on his knees, laughing. Fortunately, the attack of fun worked better than the thoughts of his grandmother`s face at Christmas dinner, so he was able to continue. “I ...think...I`ve found this colour. And it is just perfect, don`t you think?” he scooped up his cock with his hand and thoughtfully raised it in the air.  
  He was waiting for the air in the bedroom to be cut by that painfully familiar «heh-heh-heh», but Martin was pathologically serious. He turned on his back again, threw back his head, and licked his lips a bit nervously. He wasn`t satisfied with Alan`s idea to take a break, and he didn`t really understand what the hell they were doing altogether.  
  “Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” he pronounced gloomily in almost clear French.   
  “Pardon me?”  
  “Drop your vermilion banner of French revolution and come for me,” Martin said not trying to hide his irritation.  
  “Oriflamme is not the banner of the revolution...it is a...”  
  “Sure enough I don`t give a cunt suck…”  
  Sure enough Alan didn`t give a cunt suck as well. All he cared about was enraging Martin. In fact, it was the first time he succeeded. That was the very core of the reason why it was so enticing. Martin was obviously pissed off by his external indifference, and it started to turn Alan on again.  
   “Have you read the book, old boy?” Alan asked. He obeyed Martin, though, carefully climbing on top of his body again - now from the side that was more conventional: above him, face to face, and watching up and down his body enthusiastically.   
   “No,“ Martin replied firmly.   
   “Mmm,“ Alan said, his voice all milk and honey, while he smiled mockingly, “what a shame!”  
   Martin suddenly narrowed his lids. Alan felt an instant hit of cold almost physically. Martin understood that Alan was scoffing at him and definitely didn`t like that. It infuriated him. Alan didn`t intend to scoff at him, by all means. It just happened, because only here, half-naked, in the half-light of blinded curtains, in dark grey Berlin winter whether morning or evening, among the crumpled sheets - only here he felt his real, live emotions, such...normal and human...you know…it was painfully touching. It was worth it. It was what is commonly called intimacy.      
   Alan leaned and gently as he could touched Martin`s forehead with his lips, as if assuring that he was not going to hurt him. Martin froze. It seemed like he even stopped breathing and instantly leaned toward him. Alan groaned with tenderness.   
   Then he moved back again to catch the breath. He was so touched and realized that he might melt into tears.   
   “Does it come off satisfactorily?” Martin suddenly asked, running his fingertips over Alan`s cheek, and it took some time before Alan understood what he was talking about. Martin`s hand went down to his chin, then moved to the other cheek, teasing Alan`s effectors with light delicate touches and making him think that he did have a couple of other erogenous zones in the most unexpected places. Martin`s fingers settled at his lips, more precisely over his lips, not touching, only covering with his warmth.  
  “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Alan murmured, making his lips caress Martin`s fingers slowly. They burned his skin at once, but he started missing this touch right after it parted.  
  “The consummation was not satisfactory at all. I mean, probably the consummation was…Bollocks!  All died.  This story is a sad one. Sorry, love,” Alan said.  
  He could not clearly pronounce the last words, because Martin not just touched Alan`s lips with his fingers but gently and firmly stuck the tip of the middle and the first fingers into his mouth. Not too intensively, just a bit touching his lower lip, but obviously prompting him to take both fingers in his mouth voluntarily.    
  “Why on earth?” Martin asked, as if nothing had happened.  
  Alan started to feel noises in his head, which mixed the feeling of tenderness with a resurgent echo of the quieted-down exaltation. He remembered about his cock again, and, frankly, he was not very interested in world literature any more. He shrugged, closing his eyes and clasping Martin`s fingers with his lips.    
   “Not saying I detest sad stories,” Martin said, “but there has to be a bit of hope in the end…which, I believe, can be a satisfactory come-off.”  
  Alan comprehended the idea of Martin`s mind, because Martin`s fingers were now fucking his mouth slowly, reminding him what Martin actually wanted from him. Alan was willing to give it to him, but once they began to tease each other, he could not stop. He chuckled and slightly bit the fingers.  
   “Ah, screw it!” Alan said when Martin hissed and immediately snatched back his hand away from his bite.   
  After that, he was condemned to stare with his mouth open, hypnotized by Martin`s wet fingers drawing circles on his own dark nipple. Then he couldn`t stand the ineffectiveness - in his subjective opinion, of course - of the process, poked Martin`s hand away and pinched his nipple between the thumb and the first finger, forcing it to taper immediately and making Martin hiss whether of pain or pleasure, which in this case was not so fundamentally different in their way of working.  
   Without allowing Martin to come to mind and forcing him to moan again, Alan immediately went down, digging at the soft skin of Martin`s chest. He slid lower, caressing the lad`s belly with his lips and scratching it with his teeth, forcing Martin to squirm under him. It was so good that it was just unbearable. Unbearably good. He felt Martin`s fingers grab his hair, the ring of the leather bondage bracelet hit his temple. It was unlikely Martin was trying to push him away - he was rather encouraging him to continue. Alan moved down, putting Martin`s leg in that frigging stocking on his shoulder, and quickly took Martin`s cock into his mouth as far as he was able to; he even tried a bit too hard, so he barely coped with dizziness and broke out with the panic that he wouldn`t be able to breathe.  
  “A-a-a-ah!” This sound ripped Alan`s ears once again and forced him to move faster. The feeling of the very touch of his lips and of Martin`s leaning toward his mouth now made Alan get the cramps of pleasure in his thighs. He smelled and felt the nylon on his shoulder. Probably, it was the only way to feel truly alive outside images and sounds that absorbed his fantasy, outside the art, outside the music and the studio. The only common thing in all of that was his desire to enjoy every second of the process. He yanked off his shirt and remained completely naked; he had to feel the weight of Martin`s body with his bare skin.  
  The thick old-fashioned lace was scratching Alan`s shoulder and cheek, flavouring the sensation of the large cock in his mouth with the feeling of the total brain decay and decadence. He only wanted to suck, but goddamn, those thighs spread on his shoulders forced him to think further than that. Alan already imagined those not too masculine hips after the nice shagging, fallen down apart in exhaustion, delicious and charming with the beauty and the ideality of the shape of milk-white drops of their cum bawdily shining on the old-fashioned feminine lace of the stockings.  
   Alan straightened up abruptly, not even trying to take Martin`s legs off his shoulders, just holding his hips at a convenient angle. He was looking into Martin`s eyes and breathing heavily; the whole world depended on HIS glance now, only on HIS word, because Alan would never do anything HE didn`t want. Everything just lost its meaning. There was no reason to do anything HE didn`t want. Alan only remembered those words after which he lost the sense of time and found the taste of delight and pain, and the point of his existence.    
  “I want you. Now.” Martin whispered.

***

  Alan recalled Dave had once stated, “Berlin has spoiled us. But more than anything else we wanted to be spoiled.” That`s what he said about their sojourn in Berlin.  
  Kessler was telling the story about how a couple of days ago Frankie Goes to Hollywood outdid them with their “Relax” on the dance floor in the club. The fact was they had been fussing over their track about Master and Servant, polishing it in all possible and impossible parts, terrified of how it could be accepted by the local clubs... and eventually, they forgot to record the drums and bass tracks.    
  “And then there was some enchanting story,” Kessler said, shaking his leg, giggling and holding a cup of coffee with both hands, “everybody just jerked away from the dance floor when they heard the first sounds... It would be better if we just sank into the earth immediately!”  
  “Oh, dear!” Miller covered his face with his hands. It was both painful and funny for him. It was painful and funny for everyone except for Martin. It seemed like he didn`t care. This damn song didn`t bother him at all. He didn`t care a flying fuck about it. He was concerned of so much more epic thoughts. It was hurtful to look at Martin, and yet, it gave rise to some completely sick joyful emotions. He looked like he was wearing a stone mask; he was sitting there, covering the lower part of his face with his hand, and his eyes were glistening above his gnawed manicure, expressing all the suffering of the Holocaust victims or something. It seemed like his eyes faded for an instant, lost their smutty colour of green. Alan rarely could see Martin in shock. While Martin was shocked. He looked a little discouraged by himself.  
  That was understandable, though. Alan thought that it would be hurtful for him or he would feel ashamed as well. Somehow, it seemed incredibly funny. No, definitely, he didn`t want to be in Martin`s place. In addition, of course he could not, because he would not be able to tear to bits like that, so the Universe did give everybody what they deserved.  
  Meanwhile, all of them in the studio had planned how to finish their spoiled hit and were sneering now at how they would come to the club and say, “Hello again!” The conversation gradually moved on to the other songs.  
  Miller had been explaining them something for half an hour; he even drew something with a felt-tip pen on the plastic board that was hanging in the corner. Daniel was in obvious inspiration; he was dishevelled and unshaven, but his eyes were insanely sparkling through his thick glasses, and thus it meant that the producer was inspired by some new idée fixe. In the first stage, it was necessary at least to look at him and to nod occasionally, pretending that you were interested. Otherwise, he could become furious. Martin was sitting right in front of him. Martin`s exterior didn`t show any signs of intelligence. He was just sitting and staring at one point.  
  Fletch was also staring at one point, his arms folded, and looking into the emptiness over the glasses, but he had a much more reasonable face expression and nodded occasionally. By the way, Fletch did not talk to Martin that day. It was just amazing: last night was definitely successful, and Alan was delighted.  
  “Martin?! Are YOU listening to me?”  
  “Why?” Martin flinched when Miller barked to his ear suddenly.  
  “You!”   
  “Why…w…why me?” Martin asked.  
  “Boy, can you speak English? Huh?”  
  “Ah, can I?”   
  “You surely can!”  
  “Oh, I`m sorry…I have a terrible headache...”  
  Dave was drugged-out with marijuana. He behaved as nutty as a fruitcake. He was laughing aloud derisively.    
  “He has a terrific headache! Haaa-haaa-haaa...haaaa…” Dave couldn`t calm down.  
  “YOU CAN`T HAVE A HEADACHE, MARTIN!” Miller yelled exasperatedly.  
  “On what ground?” Martin asked, pulling his finger out of his mouth.  
  “BY DEFINITION!” the boss barked.  
  Dave was literally crying with laughter. Miller hadn`t been with them the day before, but Dave agreed with him. Jonathan Kessler was wiping his tears off in the corner of the room. He had been there, although didn`t see some details. Alan also covered the lower part of his face with his palm to hide a smile and not to enrage Miller by starting to laugh aloud, because Dave`s hysterics was no less enchanting than Martin Lee`s coma.  
  “You can`t have a headache, Martin Lee Gore, because you haven`t got a head!” the boss continued furiously. “IT`S IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE AN ACHE OF SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT EXIST, BY DEFINITION! IT`S IMPOSSIBLE.”  
  Martin immediately glared at Miller and at giggling Dave who was hanging around hither and yon before his eyes, and something just pissed him off suddenly. He unexpectedly snapped viciously:   
  “I could say that I`ve got a butt-ache, but I could not afford it in the presence of ladies.”  
  Alan howled and rolled out of the chair. He did not know whom exactly Martin meant, but the joke turned out to be too effervescent, because Martin was the one who was wearing his most famous dress under his jacket.  
  Dave cried and moaned the muffled:  
 “Fuuuuckmesideways...” nuzzling into Fletch`s shoulder. Fletch also tempered justice with mercy, and his body began to twitch with laughter. Alan held his stomach, getting back on the chair; he really did run out of air and was afraid of suffocation from laughter. Miller also began to smile, but only Martin didn`t laugh.   
  “Could somebody kill me, please?” he asked humbly.  
  “Ma...mar…tin, we can`t,” Alan couldn`t  answer on the first try, “you see, Martin, the mere possibility of the observation... of your...your...uh...let me put it that way... moral suffering... is so morbidly exiting that…it seems like it...causes some pre-ejaculation-like feeling inside.”  
  “Pre-eeeee-e-jaculation...” Dave whimpered - he definitely liked the word.  
  Martin stood up silently, looking at neither Alan nor Dave, and gravely headed for the door.  
  “Where are you going?” Miller asked.   
  “To kill myself,” Martin answered.  
  “Don`t you dare until you finish the song,” Miller said from behind his back. “I`ll get you from the crow road, asshole!”  
  “Since you are so persuasive,” Martin said friendly, “then I`ll go to pee while they are neighing.”  
  Dave wiped his face with his hands.  
  “What have you done to him, bastards?” Miller asked sternly and for some reason looked at Dave strictly.  
  “Nah…We just went to the club, ya know,” Dave replied, innocently flapping his long eyelashes and blowing his lips with an unfailing charisma of a nice little Jewish baby-boy.  
  Miller`s heavy gaze moved to Alan.   
  “As a matter of fact, we behaved as we always do,” said Alan, “and did nothing MORE unnatural than usual! I will answer for us both.”  
  It would be nice if Dave wasn`t giggling so viperously.  
  “FLETCH?!”  
  “I will abstain!” Fletch said firmly.  
  “By the way, Fletch also abstained yesterday!” Dave said quickly, getting knocked on the head with a rolled newspaper by Fletch. “He was the only person who…abstained…actually.”  
  “God... I can`t take it anymore…” Alan stood up and walked to the balcony; he just did not have the strength to laugh anymore, and it seemed like he forgot how to cry at the moment. “Dan, I have to go to the balcony, otherwise I`ll die before the end of the day.”  
  “Alan, are you going to smoke?”  
  “Why? You haven`t got your cigarettes, Dave?”  
  “Don`t be greedy, Alan!”  
  Alan shrugged and handed him an unopened pack.  
  “Got a light?”  
  “Give someone an inch, and they will take a mile...” he kindly teased Dave with the folk wisdom.  
  “Cunt,” Dave replied angrily, asking himself whether umbrage at Alan`s rudeness was worth giving him back a cigarette proudly and never bumming a smoke today; then he realized that it wasn`t because he had already bummed the last one from Martin, and the latter definitely wouln`t care to go to the nearest store soon.  

***  
  It was easy to tell what had happened last night, but none of three of them could ever understand why it had happened.  
  “I can`t get no satisfaction,” Mick Jagger`s voice was hoarsely screaming inside some Berlin bar. Alan was sitting at the counter, sniffing the glass edge of a beer mug thoughtfully and looking at the ranks of Jägermeister with acute fascination. Actually, he had been drinking his beer for half an hour. Exactly since he had lost Martin at the bar; so, he had already started to get bored. Therefore, he fell into a light slackjaw, hiding from himself a fair share of anger that was drilling him from the inside.   
  Unexpectedly, Dave laughed cheerfully right in his ear. It was Dave`s smell - the smell of sweat, alcohol and weed. It was not the smell of the lawn weed, which was extremely predictable.  
  “I love you, Alan...” he said, breathing hot in his ear.   
  “What`s happened this time? I hope someone died?” Alan asked with sadness in his voice, and the reader should not accuse him of hatred, because Dave`s joy was so suspiciously unexpected that Alan felt like his guts ripped off and crumbled down.   
  “Nah, dontcha worry,” answered Dave, “I just wanted to be nice with you. Ya know.”  
  “I`m so touched, Dave. What do you want from me, old boy?”  
  “Ha! Ha! Ha!” Dave laughed happily, climbing a wooden bar stool near Alan for the third time. “I have everything I need,” he laughed again at his own joke.    
  He smiled sweetly in return to some bearded German gay with bare muscular greyish hairy chest, because he clumsily fell on him all three times. The kind Berlin bearded bear deftly helped the thick-lipped dope head to sit on the stool, almost with the same pleasure as he would mount him on top of himself.  
  Alan deigned to look at Dave and squeamishly pointed at the collar of his white shirt.   
  “Since you`re a newly married beginner in this sphere, so to speak, I`d tell you out of kindness that if I were your wife, I`d start some vile and disgusting scandal,” Alan said dejectedly. “Because of the reason that the whole collar of your shirt and, by the way, even your neck are smeared up and down with a vulgar scarlet lipstick.”  
  “HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” Dave laughed out loud, throwing back his head and shining with his unshaven face with red stains and red swollen lips, “I`d tell her: you silly woman! It`s MARTIN GORE!”  
  “Indeed. I recognized this unique shade,” Alan said dejectedly still, looking at the ranks of Jägermeister. “Liberté, égalité, fraternité.”  
  “Da fuck was that?” Dave asked.  
  “Liberty, equality and debauchery or better to say harlotry,” Alan said through the clenched teeth.  
  “Hahaha,” said Dave, “you are too funny, Alan. How do freedom and equality come into the picture?”   
  “Yes, you got it, for it is neither freedom nor equality, it is a Harlotry. Harlotry is everywhere,” Alan said gloomily.    
  “What`s wrong with you, mate?”  
  “Forget it,” Alan squirmed, “just forget it, Dave. Relax.”  
  “I`m relaxed,” Dave said, “I a-a-am completely...hahaha...” he decided that it sounded ambiguous and laughed, “…relaxed. You look too strung-up, chuck. You two had a fight?”  
  Alan looked at Dave. At first he thought he was jeering at him and wanted to punch Dave in the face. However, Dave`s face expression was so sincere, and it seemed he worried about him, so Alan hissed through his teeth:  
  “Listen, I don`t even know what to tell you. Where is he? When I saw him last time, this shit,” he pointed to the French Combat Banner`s shades on Dave`s collar again, “was still on his mouth. Therefore, that means you were the last. Although, that is the question whether you were the last.”  
  “Haaaa...” Dave was not impressed with his hints, “over there, be guided by Fletch,” he said in the voice of an experienced pathfinder, “he`s tall, red-haired, and he laughs all the time because he has overeaten ecstasy – you can see him or rather hear him from afar. He looks like a sick pedophile maniac.”  
  Fletch was really slobbering over the swirling crowd like a float and shone. It took some time to find Martin, but the resolved crowd facilitated Alan`s task. Martin was sitting on the chair, lightly throwing one leg over the other; he was wearing that legendary dress that looked more like a long tank tee with long cuts right up to his hipbones on both sides of the skirt. According to the legend, he borrowed it from his legendary girlfriend Christina. Alan did not really believe in both those legends. Spending every night at the club and at least half of each day in bed with Martin, he guessed that their relationship had unlikely moved from Platonic phase more than a couple of times, and it was very doubtful that such a decent girl could dress up like a whore.   
  Martin was sitting on a chair and shooting the breeze with someone. He was totally undeterred by the fact that he actually showed his completely naked thigh to all the humanity, and with the length of the cut he clearly gave others the understanding that he probably didn`t have any underwear on, aside of that idiotic garter and those black thick stockings till the middle of his thighs.  
  “Clusterfuck,” Alan said to Dave, but when he turned he realized that Dave had suddenly vanished into the air. The club was just bewitched. All his band members would just appear and disappear all of a sudden.    
  “Noch ein Bier, bitte!**” he asked a bartender to give him another beer.  
  And it was not the end of miracles, as when the bartender gave him another beer, Martin suddenly materialized next to him grabbing his mug.  
  “I missed you, baby,” Alan said with the utmost sarcasm.    
  Martin preferred to pretend that he didn`t understand the sarcasm. He put away the half-empty mug and kissed Alan right into his mouth, not really concerning about his own beer moustache. Alan came off the stool, because with Martin`s height it was uncomfortable to kiss in such a shrivelled pose. Alan wiped the beer moisture imprinted from Martin`s face. He snuggled Martin into the bar counter, firmly hugging him across his belly, so he really could not move - he could only turn his head to meet Alan`s kiss, and that was what he actually did.  
  It was quite usual for a gay club of this rate, and the bartender immediately ceased to pay attention to what they were actually doing. And that was pretty damn good. In fact, no one cared about what they were doing there; it was noisy, stuffy, dark, and they were not the only couple to be making out in the club. Still, it seemed a little extreme for Alan at first. But after having had stood there for ten minutes with his raising boner bumped into Martin`s naked arse barely covered with a thin cotton cloth, he certainly did not forget about the world around, but the critical assessment of his own behaviour considerably decreased. Alan nestled his cock against Martin`s ass and reminisced about the colourful stripes on Dave`s shirt. All those facts filled him with rather strange emotions. He didn`t want to free Martin from his bear-hug, and Martin was obviously happy about it. However, Alan wanted to take revenge for his humiliation so badly but was unable to figure out exactly how. He could say: “You fucked Dave, cunt, didn`t you?”  But it seemed amazingly corny, and his cock objected to such a statement of the question, aware of the fact that he could spend the night drowning in sexual frustration, because yes, Mart obviously did that. Moreover, it was obvious that Alan could not accept it that easily - it would require the extraordinary exertion of all his moral and emotional strength. Alan was too tired. All that he wanted was peace and regular sex.   
  Holy Crap, Heaven, do I really ask that much?  
  An ancient wisdom says: Lord, give me the strength to change what I can change, the patience to accept what I cannot change and the wisdom to distinguish one from the other. The wisdom was on Alan`s side this time.  
  He slipped his hand under the slutty cut on Gore`s thigh as if he was the owner, suddenly realizing that Martin was not THAT stupid in regard of wearing this kind of dress – rather it was him who`d been stupid and not tried its benefit before. He grabbed Martin`s dick which was no less strained than his own, and from the outside it looked a little bawdier than a nice hug. However, the incitement that pierced both of them was the one that told them there was no turning back. Of course, Martin liked that Alan was quietly stroking his cock under that stupid skirt - who would question that. He really liked what Alan was doing; Alan even dared to suggest it was the only thing that his mate was yearning for lately. Obviously, Alan wanted to do things Martin desired, but he also wanted to do something for himself.  
  He stuck his hand back, forcing Martin to spread his legs wider and protrude his ass further back. Everything was as he expected: on the inner surface of the thighs, in the rear where he slipped his hand between the lad`s legs it was a little more wet than the natural skin moisture was supposed to be. Martin realized immediately WHAT Alan understood and strained, frightened. Ah, hell, Alan was not going to make it easier for him.   
  “Hmm, some Good Sam has left me the best lubricant inside of you for tonight, for the sake of good order,” he told Martin through his clenched teeth, while he was not a gentlemen with his arse, though.   
  “What the heck, Alan?”  
  “If I were you, I would shut the fuck up,” Alan replied tenderly, letting Martin know that he gave him a choice. His hand was still clutching him behind, hocking up the dress; with the other hand he pulled down the zipper of his own pants, took his cock out and put it directly where he had planned to enter at that exact historical moment.  
  He did not expect it, but Martin really shut up, although from the tension of his body Alan understood that he was in a fit of completely uncontrolled horror. It reconciled Alan with the current situation and made him feel compassion for his partner - just because he didn`t like violence itself but was so close to it at the moment.  
  “Who was it, Martin?” Wilder asked harshly, continuing, however, to stroke him where he needed, confusing his damn brain with the feeling of excitement and fear.  
  “A-a-a-al...” Gore`s voice was pleading. No matter what demon had forced Martin to let Dave fuck him that day, he was desperately asking for Alan`s mercy now, and it was the fact that reconciled him with everything that was going on. Martin never called him Charlie, though. Only Alan and Al. Sometimes.  
  “Who. Was. It. Martin,” Alan`s finger entered him, and he realized they wouldn`t need any lubricant in this case. “Was it Dave?”  
  “A-a-a-w…” Martin could only exhale desperately.   
  “You`d better say it was Dave,” Alan insisted, “I am not really eager to fuck you right after the act of your unjustifiable unprotected kindness to some local aborigine...”  
  It seemed like he underestimated how much Martin was turned on for now.  
  “It was Dave,” Mart sobbed under him. It looked like he was terrified more than anything by Alan`s possible reluctance to fuck him right now. He was so easy to manipulate that it was almost boring.  
   “So, Dave did fuck you,” Alan said, pressing his cock right into the entrance of Martin`s body. He could have sworn that the row of the Jägermeister`s bottles were playfully winking at him now. Of course! Standing at the counter of the crowded bar, in the middle of the goddamn Berlin city, he was carefully inserting his dick straight into Martin`s ass, without any effort, nearly invisible to others, hoicking up his dress. This fact fascinated him, as well as the fact that Martin didn`t have any valid argument to object to him.   
  “Just don`t tell me that you regret it, my sweet whore, because you have no fucking regrets,” Al put his cock inside him, feeling Dave`s sperm help him, and he just completely lost the ability to think. The way his cock was clutched now just didn`t allow him to think; nevertheless, he didn`t want to cross the line of decency now. The fact that frightened Martin was on his cock was enough for him to send him over the edge.  
  He began to move, roughly turning Martin`s face to himself, because it was more interesting to fuck him while kissing on the lips - this was the exact level of cynicism Alan was looking for at the moment. However, Martin did not spoil his evening: he immediately began to fuck back in physical and moral sense, moaning right into his mouth and showing that he liked being fucked over Dave`s cum.  
  Alan also used the moment and told Martin everything he thought about his friend`s behavioural pattern in public places in some extremely exciting and simple manner, because everything betrayed the fact that Martin liked the fact Alan was using and punishing him in such a way. And in the sex context, he could hardly be satisfied better that day.  
  Still, the most satisfying thing for Alan Wilder personally was the discouraged face of Fletch who did not suspect anything wrong. Andy came closer, rejoicing that he had finally found his comrades, and saw Martin moaning right into Alan`s mouth, as the latter was perfectly and frankly fucking him from behind; so, it was impossible not to notice standing right next to them.  
  Darn, the horror on Fletch`s face totally satisfied him when he came somewhere between Martin`s balls, smearing his own cum and mixing it with Dave`s. The moments like those were worth living for.  
  
_I want you to know I know.  
I want to know if you read me._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Oriflamme - Tennessee Williams`s story (from the Latin aureum - gold, flamma - the fire) red-gold banner of the French kings.  
> ** One more beer, please! (Germ.)


End file.
